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Photograph by Allen Drew Cook 
EUGENE VICTOR DEBS 


DEBS 


His Authorized Life and Letters 


BY 


DAVID KARSNER 


BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
PUBLISHERS New YorxE 


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CONTENTS 
| CHAPTER 
InTRODUCTORY—DeEBs’s AUTHORIZATION AND IN- 
DORSEMENT . 
I. “As Frem as GRANITE” 
‘un. TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 
Ill. Tur JourNEy To PRISON 
ylV. Two Montus at Mounnsvitte Prison . 
VY. TRANSFERRED To ATLANTA 
Y VI. Earty Days anp Backcrounps 
VII.. Lasor UNIonist AND Woopstock 
VIII. Four PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 
IX. LIBertTarraAn anD LOVER 
X. His Impress oN THE FUTURE .. . 
JAPA T ED. UNG Ata aU Sa MA San a 


101 
110 
130 
179 
209 
224 
229 


INTRODUCTION 


DEBS’S AUTHORIZATION AND INDORSEMENT 


UGENE VICTOR DEBS, a federal convict in the 

United States Prison at Atlanta, Ga., was pro- 
hibited, under the prison rule, from doing any sort 
of writing except the one letter a week to his family. 
He could not, therefore, write an introduction to this 
volume. Consequently, I visited him at the Atlanta 
Prison on July 17, 1919, and in the presence of Warden 
Fred G. Zerbst, Debs authorized and authenticated this 
record of his life in these words: 


“‘T am exceedingly glad that you were commissioned 
to write this book which, I am sure, will come to be 
recognized as an important and an imperishable con- 
tribution to American labor history. Although the 
rules of the prison do not permit me to write an. 
introduction to your book, or to do any writing of any 
kind aside from my one letter a week to my family, in 
this spoken word I authorize you to write the story. 

“‘T give to you as the author, and to Boni and 
Liveright as the publishers, not merely my word of ap- 
proval and hearty indorsement of your book, but my 
warm appreciation of this manifest interest in the cause 
in which I have been privileged to serve all of my life. 
You will write just the kind of a book that Time and 
History will require, and in every line, on every page 
you will be speaking for me with my authority, given 
to you without reservations or qualifications. 

‘“More than any other person you have been pe- 

vil 


‘viii INTRODUCTION 


culiarly identified with the whole story since it be- 
gan with the trial in September, 1918. Your daily 
reports of the trial in Cleveland, your several accounts 
of the trip we took from Terre Haute to Moundsville 
Penitentiary last April, and your several interviews with 
me at Moundsville, all printed in The New York Cail, 
were rare specimens of newspaper accuracy and jour- 
nalistic skill. I say this not as flattery, but as the per- 
sonal conviction which I have expressed to you in writing 
before. 

“*Honestly, I do not know of a man in America who 
is placed in so advantageous a position, from so many 
angles, to write this book, as yourself. I suppose that. 
other books along similar lines and covering the same 
subject will be bound to follow, but already you are 
fortified with a thorough knowledge of the case and 
have an understanding and an appreciation of its his- 
toric significance to be able, more than any other, to 
write authoritatively. As you have so far been the 
newspaper historian of my trial, conviction and im-. 
prisonment, you will now become the historian of the 
whole story in a much larger and more permanent sense. 

‘And I indorse and shall stand by your book as being 
the real and true history of such facts, incidents and 
data that you may deem necessary to write about, com- 
ment upon or interpret, and you therefore understand 
without further word from me that I place abundant 
faith in your moral and intellectual integrity. If I 
did not feel absolutely sure that you would discuss your 
subject frankly, fearlessly, justly and accurately, and 
in the same intellectually honest spirit that I would 
write of it, I should of course be compelled to withhold 
my imprimatur from your book. 

‘‘During this past year, crowded with these mo- 
mentous months when we have been together under the 
most trying circumstances, you have measured beyond 
every test of loyalty and devotion as a friend and com- 


INTRODUCTION 1x 


rade, and have given me cause to regard you always 
as my younger spiritual brother. 

““T wish your book every success; which I am sure it 
will have; and you have my authority to sign my name 
to what I have told you in this interview, inasmuch as 
the rules of the United States Prison here do not per- 
mit me to give you my written word.’’ 


Still in the presence of the warden, ’Gene Debs sealed 
these words with an affectionate embrace. Then he 
slowly backed off to the door, smiling and serene, walked 
rapidly down the silent marble corridor with light and 
agile tread, and the heavy iron door slammed and locked 
as he slipped beyond, and became again a common con- 
vict, U. S. No. 9653. 


DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE 
AND LETTERS 


CHAPTER I 
“AS FIRM AS GRANITE” 


O far as I am concerned these stone walls and steel 
bars do not exist; I do not see them. My spirit 
soars beyond this institution and mingles with the spirits 
- of my comrades, loyal and devoted all, throughout the 
country and the world. For my own self I am serene 
and dauntless, and for my comrades I am confident that 
the cause in which and for which they are working all 
their waking hours will soon triumph, and in that blessed 
day the workers of the world will inaugurate the great- 
est liberty and democracy that the world has ever known. 
Tell my comrades that I am all right and that there 
is nothing to worry about; and now is there anything 
else that you wanted to see me about?”’ 

Eugene Victor Debs, a Federal prisoner serving a sen- 
tence of ten years for violating the Espionage Act by 
making a speech at Canton, Ohio, on June 16th, 1918, 
which the government construed as being inimical to 
the success of the war in which it was engaged with 
the Allied Powers against Germany, had been speaking 
to me for half an hour in the private office of the warden 
at the Atlanta Federal Prison. I told him that there 
were a thousand things about which I should like to 
speak to him, but he instantly assured me that it was 
unnecessary; that while he had not received a single 
paper or periodical since he came to Atlanta, June 14th, 

1 


2 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


1919, from Moundsville Penitentiary, West Virginia, 
where he began to serve his term exactly two months 
before, still he knew, felt, all the important happenings 
and did not need to be enlightened. 

‘*T can feel the vibrations of the warm, firm and tender 
hearts beating in unison for freedom and_democracy 
all over the world. The swelling note of their song 
reverberates through these corridors, and I know they 
are active. At night, in my prison cell I can feel the 
warm and tender fingers of little children upon my face, 
and all these things give me strength and courage to face 
the future, whatever it may hold, with serenity and com- 
posure.’’ 

Debs was now standing, clad in the prison blue, his 
lean hands placed firmly upon each of my shoulders, 
his six foot figure, gaunt and slender, slightly stoop- 
ing, his smooth, lean and mobile face wreathed in a 
smile, and his spectacled gray-blue eyes moist and ra- 
diant. A few feet from us Warden Fred G. Zerbst was 
standing at his yellow roll-top desk, wearing an expres- 
sion on his face which to me seemed to betoken a mixture 
of astonishment, sadness and sympathetic amusement. 
In a moment Debs was backing off to the door and as 
he turned his head before he stepped down the white 
marble corridor he bowed and waved his hand to the 
warden in a courteous manner, as an expression of his 
thanks to his keeper for permitting the interview. Debs 
Was wearing cheap canvas ‘‘sneakers’’ over rough cot- 
ton socks. Before the echo of the slamming iron door 
behind him had died out in the sepulchral corridor, 
Warden Zerbst and I, both still standing, were looking 
very foolishly at each other. 

“‘Did the government build this prison for such 
men?’’ IT asked. 

‘‘The government built this prison for men who vio- 
late Federal laws,’’ replied the warden judiciously. Be- 
fore his answer came I imagined there was a negative 


“AS FIRM AS GRANITE”’ 3 


reply to my inquiry in his mind. But if there was he 
gave it no voice. 

During this talk with Debs he mentioned having seen 
a newspaper article purporting to be a statement of A. 
Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General of the United States, 
to the effect that if Debs would repent things might be 
made easier for him. A liberal interpretation of this 
statement might be made to imply that Debs could 
have a pardon if he would but ask for it and say he 
was sorry for what he had done. In speaking of the 
newspaper article he had read Debs’s eyes narrowed 
almost to slits, and his great jaw tightened, and the 
flesh on his long and narrow chin was drawn as his 
mouth contracted with the gritting of his teeth. 

*‘Repent! Repent!’’ he snapped. ‘‘Repent for stand- 
ing like aman! For having a conviction about a public 
question, and standing by it and for the Cause! Why, 
before I would don the sackcloth and get down into 
the ashes before the Attorney General or any man on 
earth for having a principle I would gladly walk to 
the gallows or the stake. If I should do such a thing 
as that the barbaric tortures of the Inquisition would 
be too good for me. 

*‘No! Not in a thousand years shall I repent for a 
single principle that I possess. They are dearer to me 
than liberty, than life itself.’’ Pointing his finger in 
his most characteristic manner in the direction of the 
iron gray gate at the entrance, he continued: 

““The flies will carry me through that keyhole piece 
by piece before I shall ever confess sorrow or penitence 
for standing like a man, and by my constitutional rights 
as an American citizen.’’ Debs was on fire. His great 
frame was hot in the molten passion of his spirit. He 
was now manifesting the grand bitterness of his ua- 
ture, which, from another side is cooled from a tower 
of fire and force, to a stooping figure of infinite tender- 


4 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


ness, mercy, compassion and love. ‘‘No,’’ said he, ‘‘I 
am as firm as granite!’’ ‘ 

It can be said without exaggeration that Eugene v. 
Debs is one of the most celebrated prisoners ever placed 
behind steel bars in America. Before his inearceration 
he had enjoyed national, even international, fame for 
twenty years, having first been a candidate for Presi- 
dent of the United States on the Social-Democratic 
Party’s ticket in 1900. In the three successive presi- 
dential campaigns he again led the Socialist Party. He 
resolutely declined to accept the nomination for the fifth 
time in 1916 when his party again looked to him to be 
their leader. In that presidential year, still eager to 
earry on the propaganda of Socialism, he permitted 
his state (Indiana) organization to run him for 
Congress in the Fifth District, which embraces Terre 
Haute, the town in which he was born and has lived all 
his life. Of Debs’s four presidential campaigns we shall 
deal later. They have been mentioned here merely by 
way of suggesting the national character and import of 
this man, many of whose thousands of political opponents 
are among his personal friends, and whose breadth of 
intellect, spirit and vision transcends any single ereed, 
dogma or political party. Although the Socialists claim 
him particularly, and he glories in their claim, he steps, 
in fact, far beyond the Socialist creed, a man whose 
spiritual figure will loom larger on the social horizon 
with the passing of time. It may be that Debs will be 
remembered and revered in history long after his im- 
mediate political attachment has been eclipsed by other 
creeds and formulas looking toward the perfect day 
and the noble spirit. 

Debs stepped into a felon’s cell as philosophically as 
if he were stepping into a train to go to some meeting 
place to address a large audience. He donned the prison 
gray at Moundsville and the prison blue at Atlanta with 
the same equanimity with which he would put on civilian 


“AS FIRM AS GRANITR”’ 5 


clothing at home. In both prison experiences he has 
exhibited the same irrefragable determination of spirit 
and mental serenity that he has manifested on unnum- 
bered occasions in industrial and political contests. 
There was no boast in the statement which he gave to 
me just before he entered Moundsville Prison April 
13th, 1919: 

*‘T enter the prison doors a flaming revolutionist— 
my head erect, my spirit untamed and my soul uncon- 
querable.’’ 

I saw Debs first at the Atlanta Prison on June 18th. 
He had arrived there from Moundsville Prison the previ- 
ous Saturday afternoon, June 14th. I was permitted 
by Warden Zerbst to see Debs only because I presented 
a letter to him written by Warden Joseph Z. Terrell of 
Moundsville Prison, which introduced me ‘‘as a writer 
of The New York Call, a close personal friend of Debs,’’ 
and stated that I had been permitted to see Debs sev- 
eral times and that ‘‘not once did he deviate from my 
instructions as to what he might say to Debs, or the 
length of his visit.’’ The Atlanta warden was insistent 
that I write ‘‘no sensational interview’’ in ease he should 
let me see Debs. The government did not permit news- 
paper people to interview prisoners, he said. Sitting 
on the veranda of the warden’s dwelling, we held quite 
a lengthy talk about Debs and his ease. 

The first five days of Debs’s stay at Atlanta he was 
locked in a cell, having been numbered 9653. In a letter 
from Warden Terrell, Zerbst was familiarized with the 
humane treatment and consideration accorded Debs 
at Moundsyille, and Zerbst was requested to be as kind to 
Debs as the prison rules of Atlanta would permit. Zerbst 
told me, on my first visit, that he intended to place Debs 
in the hospital, in a clerical position similar to that which 
he held at Moundsville for the two months that he was 
there. In my presence, Zerbst so informed Debs.of his 
intentions. 


6 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


‘*Well, warden, that is very kind of you, but I think 
I should like to have a little manual labor, too. I am 
very familiar with overalls. At home in Terre Haute I 
am scarcely out of bluejeans. I am the official swabber 
of my back alley. I give it a bath every day. One day 
at home while I was sweeping the alley, an old neighbor 
of mine, a very poor man, came along and said, ‘Look 
yere, Mr. Debs, you’re keepin’ a good man out of a job 
by sweepin’ that alley yourself.’ 

‘< “Well, neighbor, how much a day would you get 
for doing this work?’ I asked him. 

‘<*Two dollars, Mr. Debs.’ 

“*So I gave him the two dollars and I kept the job, and ~ 
we were both happy and contented.’’ 

I left the prison in June with the impression that 
*Gene would be treated almost as well as he had been at 
Moundsville. His friends were astonished upon learn- 
ing in July that he had been assigned to work in the 
clothing department, and slept in a cell with five other 
prisoners; that to all outward intents and purposes this 
would be his routine life for the coming ten years. 

In July, Zerbst voluntarily explained that Debs had 
requested his present employment in the clothing ware- 
house instead of the hospital assignment. But I learned| 
from Debs’s own lips the reason. He had been proffered 
the hospital assignment, which would have allowed him 
to sleep in a dormitory instead of a cell, and a bed in- 
stead of a bunk. When he went to the hospital one of 
the attaches, remarking to another, said, “‘He will 
cheat the government out of his sentence; he’ll never 
live ten years.’? Debs heard the slur, and refused 
to go to work in the hospital, but he did not explain to 
Zerbst the reason, and that official never knew, believ- 
ing that ‘‘Debs prefers the other work.’’ At Atlanta the 
rigorous prison rules were applied in all their severity 
to Debs just as they apply to the 1700 other prisoners. 
Debs expressed himself to me as being glad that this 


“AS FIRM AS GRANITE” 7 


was so. He refused to place himself in the position of 
being the recipient of special favors that were not ac- 
corded his fellow convicts. What was good enough, or, 
rather, what was bad enough for them, was equally good or 
bad enough for him, and he would not have it otherwise. 

As to the treatment accorded Debs at Atlanta, and 
his reactions to it, we might just as well let the great 
humanist speak for himself in his letter to his brother, 
Theodore, at Terre Haute: 


THEODORE DEBs, U. S. Penitentiary, 
121814 Wabash avenue, Atlanta, Ga. 
Terre Haute, Indiana. July 3d, 1919. 


My prEAREST OLD Parp: 

A thousand loving greetings to you and Gertrude 
and Marguerite and ‘‘Babe’’! You know why, under 
my limited writing privileges, you have not heard from 
me before. And you know, too, that you have been in 
my heart every moment since we embraced in love and 
farewell that never-to-be-forgotten night. You are the 
sweetest, faithfullest, darling of a brother a mortal ever 
had. Kate* has been telling me all about how good and 
sweet and attentive you and Gertrude and Marguerite 
have been to her, and that has been of inexpressible 
solace to me—We all may write a special letter on the 
Fourth of July and it is this letter that I’m now writing 
to you. Please drop a line to Marguerite and tell her 
why I can’t write and that I send my love and tenderest 
devotion to them all. The ride down here was hot and 
tiresome but I stood it well. Had but an hour’s notice 
before leaving and everything was kept profoundly se- 
eret. The first five days here I was locked in my cell 
day and night. I’m now assigned to clerical work in 
Clothing Room, very light, and in charge of Mr. Boyle 
and Mr. Barry(?), two very fine men. We work from 


* Mrs. Katherine M. Debs, Terre Haute, Indiana, wife of Eugene 
V. Debs. 


8 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


8 till near 4—then twenty minutes in yard, then sup- 
per. We are in our cells from 5 P. M. to 7 A. Mi—Satur- 
day and Sunday P. M. we have out in the grounds from 
about 1 to 4. There are six of us in one cell—my five 
companions are the finest kind of fellows and I love them 
all. One is a German, one a Jew, one an Irishman and 
two Americans. They are all fine, bright fellows and 
they vie with each other in being kind to me. Don’t let 
any one send me anything as it cannot come to me under 
the rules. I have not received a package of any kind, 
nor a Socialist paper or magazine since I’ve been here. 
Cigars, fruit, candy, eatables cannot come to me, so 
please notify Germer* and the papers not to send me 
anything as it will not reach me. Tell the comrades I 
cannot write to them. I can write but one letter a week 
and that to my family. A special letter requires appli- 
cation in writing, special permission, and must be con- 
fined to the one subject for which it is written, which 
must be specified. The application must be approved by 
the guard before it can be passed on—it may or may 
not be granted and when written it may or may not be 
sent. I am treated exactly the same as the common run 
of prisoners and have no complaint on that score. The 
prisoner here to whom we sent a little money for to- 
bacco about two years ago has been very kind to me 
and returned it many fold. Bread cast upon the waters, 
etc. I’m in perfect health. My spirits could not be 
more serene and dauntless. I calmly await the future. 
All’s well. 

My love and kisses to you all and forever, 

GENE. 

Eugene V. Debs, 
No. 9653. 


Debs himself had related to me on my visit in July the 
substantial facts concerning his treatment and estate 
* Adolph Germer, National Secretary, Socialist Party, Chicago. 


“AS FIRM AS GRANITR”’ 9 


at Atlanta Prison. After he had mentioned the different 
nationalities of his five cell mates he said: 

‘And I am an internationalist, so we all get along 
splendidly together.’’ 

He said he was not being persecuted at the prison 
because of his social ideas. But I could easily under- 
stand without a word from him, by the flash of his eyes 
and the stiffness of his jaws, with what hatred he re- 
garded all prisons, and with what sympathetic under- 
standing he entered into the dull, drab lives of his fel- 
low prisoners. 

““You remember,’’ he said to me on one of my visits 
to his cell, ‘“you remember what Lincoln said when at 
New Orleans he saw a young negress being sold on the 
block? He said: ‘If I ever get a chance I’ll hit at the 
very foundations of chattel slavery, and Ill hit it hard.’ 
Well, if I ever get out of here alive I’ll strike at the 
prison system harder than Lincoln ever hit at chattel 
slavery.”’ 

At Atlanta Debs and his five cell mates alternated in 
teams of two each week sweeping, swabbing and washing 
the cell, which was neither a difficult job nor a long 
one for six healthy and normal human beings, consider- 
ing the fact that the cell was only ten by eight feet. In 
the sextette cells there are three steel bunks in tiers on 
each side of the walls. A thin straw mattress is thrown 
over the springless steel frame of each. A rough sheet 
and a blanket make up the clothing. 

“*Last week,’’ said Debs, ‘‘came the turn of my Jewish 
comrade and me to sweep and wash the floor and walls. 
A line in the cement floor running down the middle of 
the cell furnished the division of our labor. I had my 
back turned to the fellow, as I was washing the wall 
between the bunks, and when I turned around I saw that 
the rascal had hunched over on my side of the line and 
had washed almost the entire floor. I naturally gave 
him a good talking to, and told him that since the govern- 


10 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


ment had given me a job I wanted to fill it, and that 
he should ‘shinny over on his own side.’ ”’ 

Debs has not often been in accord with the ideas of 
priests and preachers, and when he was visited in his cell 
at Atlanta by them the occasion presented an opportun- 
ity to deliver himself on the subject, as he _put it, of 
churchianity versus Christianity. 

““T have already had two visitors,’’ said Debs, with 
a merry twinkle in his eye, ‘‘yes, one a priest and the 
other a preacher. They came at different times, but on 
the same mission, to save my soul. They both wanted 
to know what religion I professed. I told them that 
their churches and their theologies were not for me—I 
have no use for them. Their tendencies are not to serve 
but to enslave. To conceal rather than reveal the true 
and vital significance of the Sermon on the Mount.’’ 
So, Debs said he told the two clergymen that he be- 
longed to no church, and bowed to no image. He said 
he believed firmly in immortality, and saw the spiritual 
likeness of God in the face of every breathing being. 

“*‘T told my friends of the cloth that I did not be- 
lieve Christ was meek and lowly, but a real, living, vital 
agitator who went into the Temple with a lash and a 
knout and whipped the oppressors of the poor, routed 
them out of doors and spilled their blood-got silver on 
the fioor. He told the robbed and misruled and exploited 
and driven people to disobey their plunderers! he de- 
nounced the profiteers, and it was for this that they 
nailed his quivering body to the cross and spiked it to 
the gates of Jerusalem, not because he told men to love 
one another. That was a harmless doctrine. But when 
he touched their profits and denounced them before their 
people he was then marked for crucifixion. I did the 
same thing in a different way,’’ continued Debs on this 
occasion, speaking in a most impersonal matter-of-fact 
manner, with not the slightest suggestion of self-praise, 
but rather in a vein of deep humility. ‘‘I did the same 


“AS FIRM AS GRANITE”’ 11 


thing, but I fared better than Christ. They nailed him 
to the cross and they threw me in here. We have pro- 
gressed quite some in two thousand years. If Christ 
could go to the cross for his principles, surely I can go 
to prison for mine, and I want nothing more than the 
strength to be able to serve in this slight way those who 
have done so much for me. To be here for the reason 
that I am here is a high privilege, and, in a sense, a 
vindication of many things, all of which will come out 
all right in God’s good time. All of us but need the 
strength to face the future together.’’ 

Debs is a most religious man. He accepts literally 
what he conceives to be the principles for which Christ 
was crucified. He is a Christian to whom the church 
offers nothing but an apology for Christ. He was a 
personal friend of Robert G. Ingersoll, and he admired 
the speeches and writings of the great agnostic, and 
understood their significance as few men in that period 
did. Debs is preéminently an agitator, a crusader. He 
has lived close to the pulsing heart of the human race. 
He accepts the Socialist philosophy because he is sure 
it can be made to serve the poor and make them rich in 
the good things of life. In his heart and soul there is no 
trace of hatred for a living soul, and he has said time and 
again that he would serve those who oppose him just as 
much as those who are with him. Few men in America 
have possessed the gift of oratory that belongs to Eugene 
V. Debs. What he once said of Ingersoll, that ‘‘flowers 
blossom upon his lips, and you can hear the ripple of 
silver springs in the music of his voice,’’ is likewise said 
of him. In his forty years of agitation in behalf of the 
workers and the organized labor movement of America 
Debs has addressed millions of people. Once when he 
came to New York to make an address at Madison Square 
Garden the hall was crowded to the last inch. Lincoln 
Steffens, the journalist, had a seat offered him on the 
platform which he declined, saying he would rather go 


12 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS) 


down under the stage so that he might be able ‘‘to feel 
’Gene’s vibrations.’’ 

Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, November 
5, 1855. In his sixty-fifth year he enjoys fair health, 
despite the results of a severe nervous breakdown a few 
years ago which left him prostrated for some while. He 
stands a little over six feet, is slender and gaunt like 
Lincoln. When speaking, both in public and in private, 
he gesticulates frequently with his large, lean right 
hand, extending and separating his fingers, with his 
thumb curved far back. The gestures of that right hand 
are a vital part of his talk, and in his grip you can feel 
the sincere, pulsing heart of the man. His baldness, 
which extends back beyond the crown of his head, ac- 
centuates the myriad tiny veins, lines of suffering, and 
the valleys and crevices in his face. 

Debs has made his living for many years by his 
speeches and writings, although by far the most of his 
speeches have been delivered without any thought of 
pay, and the major portion of his writings have been 
given freely to the small daily and weekly papers whose 
political and economic doctrines he supports. Scores of 
weeklies and radical publications claim him as their 
‘‘contributing editor,’’ although most of them are finan- 
cially unable to contribute toward his material well- 
being. For many years an article in any one of these 
publications signed by his name has been considered a 
“‘star feature,’’ and is reprinted again and again until 
it has run its printorial course from coast to coast, from 
the Gulf to the regions farthest north. He has had 
compensatory attachments with The Appeal io Reason 
of Girard, Kansas, when that free-lance Socialist weekly 
was conducted under a former management, and later 
he wrote a weekly editorial for The Rip Saw, another 
free-lance Socialist weekly, published at St. Louis, and 
which later became known as The Social Revolution just 
before it went into eclipse. He has written for a num- 


““AS FIRM AS GRANITE’’ 13 


ber of the more widely known publications, too, and 
always in the style and manner of an agitator, a eru- 
sader. Several scores of his most significant articles 
have been reprinted in leaflet and pamphlet form, and 
have had tremendous sales in which Debs has almost 
never shared, the profits going into the coffers of the 
particular enterprising Socialist Party branch to en- 
able it to increase its propaganda for Socialism in its 
community. Times uncounted he has traveled long dis- 
tances to address meetings, paying every expense, even 
railroad fare, out of his own pocket. He is reckless with 
money—gives it away. Many stories have been told 
about him concerning the number of overcoats he has 
given to poor derelicts whom he chanced to meet in his 
travels about the country. Once he came to Philadelphia 
to address a large rally of his party. He was met at the 
railroad depot by friends and an escorting committee. 
He saw in the group an old and staunch friend, Horace 
Traubel, poet and editor, a man of his own beliefs. 

*‘Horace, have you got any money?’’ Debs asked, 
when the greetings were over. Traubel had in his pocket 
twenty dollars which he gave over to Debs without fur- 
ther word. 

“*‘T haven’t got a cent,’’ explained Debs. ‘‘On my 
train coming east there was an old woman with several 
children, and the poor soul had lost her ticket. The con- 
ductor was going to put her off. I gave her every cent 
I had so she could go on her way.’’ And Traubel was 
reimbursed by Debs as soon as the latter arrived home 
at Terre Haute. 

The simplicity and sincerity of his kindnesses have 
been the simplicity and sincerity of his powerful attacks 
against whatever he considered to be injustice. Keenly, 
persistently, he has sought his goal. Bitter criticism, pun- 
ishment, could not affect the vision in his soul. Sixty- 
four years of age—a ten-year term of imprisonment— 
simply,serenely, he took that vision with him into his cell. 


CHAPTER I 
TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 


HE Debs case was the result of a speech made by 

Debs in Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918, before the 
Ohio State Socialist Convention.* He had made a num- 
ber of other speeches to his comrades in the Socialist 
movement at various times during the year from April 
6, 1917, the date on which Congress declared that a state 
of war existed between the United States and the Ger- 
man Imperial Government, up to the Canton address. 
On June 20, 1918, a Federal grand jury empaneled at 
Cleveland, in the Eastern Division of the Northern Dis- 
' trict of Ohio, returned an indictment, consisting of ten 
counts, against Debs under Section Three of the Act of 
June 15, 1917, as amended by Act of May 16, 1918, and 
known as the Espionage Law. On September 9, 1918, 
Debs went to trial at Cleveland before Judge D. C. 
Westenhaver. He was represented by Seymour Sted- 
man, of Chicago; William A. Cunnea, of Chicago; Joseph 
W. Sharts, of Dayton, Ohio, and Morris Wolf, of Cleve- 
land. The government was represented by United States 
District Attorney E. S. Wertz, assisted by F. B. Kav- 
anaugh, and one or two other assistants. On the previ- 
ous day, Sunday afternoon, Debs, at his home in Terre 
Haute, calmly discussed his case with his counsel, feeling 
almost certain that the following week would find him 
convicted. With the knowledge of the fates of several 


hundred other Socialists, Industrial Workers of the: 


World, Bible students and political and religious free- 


* Salient extracts from the Canton speech may be found in the 
Appendix. 


14 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 15 


thinkers, convicts under the Espionage Act, still fresh 
in his mind, Debs could not well be sanguine concerning 
his own fate. 

He took the position from the beginning of his predica- 
ment that the Federal Constitution protected, or was 
intended to so protect, his rights as an American citizen, 
born in the United States. He stood squarely upon the 
First Amendment: 

*“Congress shall make no law respecting an establish- 
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, 
or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or 
the right of the people peacefully to assemble and to peti- 
tion the Government for a redress of their grievances.’’ 

Over and against that guarantee was the Espionage 
Act, passed originally June 15, 1917, and amended May 
16, 1918. The original act was as follows: 

(Title I, Section 3.) ‘‘ Whoever, when the United 
States is at war, shall (1) wilfully make or convey false 
reports or false statements with intent to interfere with 
the operation or success of the military or naval forces 
of the United States or to promote the success of its 
enemies, and whoever, when the United States is at war, 
(2) shall wilfully cause or attempt to cause insubordina- 
tion, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the mili- 
tary or naval forces of the United States, or shall (3) 
wilfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of 
the United States, to the injury of the service or of the 
United States, shall be punished by a fine of not more 
than ten thousand dollars or imprisonment for not more 
than twenty years, or both.’’ 

Of far more drastic nature was the amended act: 

*“Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall 
wilfully make or convey false reports or false statements 
with intent to interfere with the operation or success 
of the military or naval forces of the United States, or 
to promote the success of its enemies, or shall wilfully 
make or convey false reports or false statements, or say 


16 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


or do anything except by way of bona fide and not dis- 
loyal advice to an investor or investors, with intent to 
obstruct the sale by the United States of bonds or other 
securities of the United States or the making of loans by 
or to the United States, and whoever, when the United 
States is at war, shall wilfully cause, or attempt to cause, 
or incite or attempt to incite, insubordination, disloyalty, 
mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces 
of the United States, or shall wilfully obstruct or at- 
tempt to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of 
the United States, and whoever, when the United States 
is at war, shall wilfully utter, print, write or publish 
any disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language 
about the form of government of the United States, or 
the Constitution of the United States, or the military or 
naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the 
United States, or the uniform of the army or navy of 
the United States, or any language intended to bring the 
form of government of the United States, or the Consti- 
tution of the United States, or the military or naval 
forces of the United States, or the flag of the United 
States, or the uniform of the army or navy of the United 
States into contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute, or 
shall wilfully utter, print, write or publish any language 
intended to incite, provoke or encourage resistance to 
the United States, or to promote the cause of its ene- 
mies, or shall wilfully display the flag of any foreign 
enemy, or shall wilfully, by utterance, writing, printing, 
publication or language spoken, urge, incite or advocate 
any curtailment of production in this country of any 
thing or things, product or products, necessary or essen- 
tial to the prosecution of the war in which the United 
States may be engaged, with intent by such curtailment 
to cripple or hinder the United States in the prosecution 
of the war, and whoever shall wilfully advocate, teach, 
defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things 
in this section enumerated, and whoever shall, by word 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 17 


or act, support or favor the catise of any country with 
which the United States is at war, or by word or act op- 
pose the cause of the United States therein, shall be pun- 
ished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars 
or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or 
both.”’ 

Several hours before Judge Westenhaver’s court con- 
vened that morning Debs was busy every moment, both 
at the Holland Hotel and the Gillsy House, around the 
corner, holding impromptu receptions with his friends 
and counsel, seeming to be wholly oblivious of the ordeal 
through which he must pass in the coming week. He 
was calm and composed, and to one anxious friend, who 
expressed deep concern over the outcome of the trial, 
Debs said: ‘‘This is but another milepost along the 
pathway of progress. We shall not tarry here very 
long.’’ As he entered the courtroom, clad in fresh sum- 
mer gray, he was instantly surrounded by a large group 
of his fellow Socialists who had been standing in line 
outside the judicial doors for several hours in the hope 
of getting a seat to witness the trial of their chief. Debs, 
walking with one of his counsel, took his seat at a table, 
folded his hands in his lap, and appeared eager for the 
eurtain to rise on what was to be the climax of his career. 
He followed closely the examination of the veniremen, 
appearing to be not so much concerned as a defendant, 
as interested as a spectator. After four hours of ex- 
amination and cross-examination of a score or more of 
prospective talesmen, twelve men were chosen to try 
the case. A jury of farmers had been selected. They 
all evinced their thorough nationalism by the answers 
they gave to pertinent and leading questions of Debs’s 
counsel. All believed in the form of government of the 
United States, its Constitution, including the First 
Amendment, which several of them had heard read and 
explained for the first time in their lives, and disclaimed 
any prejudice against Debs or the party he represented. 


18 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Assistant District Attorney Kavanaugh presented the 
government’s case to the jury. He was a prepossessing 
young man, and accepted the duty that lay before him 
with ardor and vehemence. 

‘“‘This man is the palpitating pulse of the sedition 
crusade,’’ he exclaimed, adding later, “‘by_his words 
shall he be judged, and by his words shall he be con- 
demned.’’ His address lasted the better part of an 
hour, and, when it was finished, Debs leaned across the 
counsel table and complimented his adversary upon his 
efforts. 

Stedman, speaking for Debs, justified, by the Consti- 
tution of the United States, everything his client had 
said in his Canton speech, and when he said to the jury: 
**You would not indict Woodrow Wilson because he wrote 
in his book, ‘The New Freedom,’ that wars are brought 
by the rulers and not by the people,’’ there was applause 
in the rear of the courtroom. The court quickly smoth- 
ered this demonstration, and the participants, including 
Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes, a New York worker in the So- 
cialist cause, who at that time was herself convicted of 
violating the Espionage Act, were fined. Mrs. Stokes, 
who sat by Debs during his trial, was enjoying her free- 
dom under bail pending the disposition of appeal of her 
case. Stedman paid tribute to Debs and his life work, 
concluding with the words: 

““We ask you to judge Eugene V. Debs by his life, his 
deeds and his works. If you will do that we shall abide ~ 
by your verdict.’’ 

Clyde R. Miller, a newspaper reporter of Cleveland, 
was the chief witness for the government. He testified 
that he was sent by his paper, the Cleveland Plain 
Dealer, to report the proceedings of the Socialist con- 
vention at Canton on June 16th, and that he had inter- 
viewed Debs at the Courtland Hotel in Canton just 
before he delivered his address. Miller testified that he 
had particularly asked Debs whether the newspapers 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 19 


had correctly reported him when they stated that he had 
repudiated the St. Louis Majority Report of the So- 
cialist Party.* Denying the statements that he had re- 
pudiated the anti-war proclamation of his party, Miller 
testified that Debs said in that interview: 

**T approved of the adoption of the platform in form 
and substance at the time it was created, but in the 
light of the Russian situation I think we should have 
put forth a restatement of the aims of the Socialist 
Party.’’ Miller also quoted Debs as saying to him: 
**In a land where they are fighting for democracy one 
must be very careful what one says if one would keep 
out of jail.’’ 

“*‘He told me it was his opinion that the Bolsheviki 
of Russia were the inspiration of the world, and that 
he hoped their ideas would come to prevail in America,”’ 
Miller swore. ‘‘He told me, further, that the Socialist 
movement in America was growing numerically and 
morally as a direct result of the arrest and conviction 
of radicals under the Espionage Law.’’ There was 
nothing venomous in the character or quality of the 
young reporter’s testimony. He appeared rather to be 
personally sympathetic toward Debs, and to be laboring 
under some discomfiture in having to testify against 
the old agitator. — 

The most astonishing revelation of the trial came 
with the testimony of Virgil Steiner, a youth of twenty 
years, when he said that he had been pressed into serv- 
ice by the Department of Justice to take a stenographic 
report of Debs’s address at Canton, despite his admis- 
sion on the witness stand that his knowledge of short- 
hand was so meager that he had practiced it but little 
even in common office dictation. The young man ad- 
mitted\ that he was hopelessly at a loss in following 


* Proclamation of the Socialist Party expressing opposition to 
the war. Adopted in national convention at St. Louis, Mo., April 
5, 1917, and known as the St. Louis Majority Report, other reports 
having been offered. 


20 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Debs’s speech, and that very early in the address he 
abandoned all attempt to follow Debs verbatim. He 
admitted to the court that he would rest between long 
sentences and exclamations, and then would “‘jump in’’ 
to follow the thread of the discourse, This is all the, 
more significant when we consider the fact that it was 
Steiner’s version upon which the indictment against 
Debs was drawn, coupled with the testimony of Miller 
before the grand jury. At the time the Department of 
Justice agents at Canton pressed Steiner into service 
as a government stenographer to take a speech of a man 
who would probably be sent to the penitentiary the 
lad was employed by a motor car concern at Canton. 
The Steiner version was read to the jury and only 
forty minutes were required for the reading, whereas 
Debs talked for about two hours on that occasion. Con- 
trasted with the Steiner version, Edward B. Sterling, 
32 years old, a lawyer of Canton, was employed by the 
Ohio State Socialist Convention to take in shorthand 
and transcribe the entire Canton speech. Sterling told 
the court that he had twelve years’ experience as a 
shorthand reporter, and had ‘‘taken down’’ many 
speeches of representatives and senators in Congress. 
Both shorthand reporters were made to read to the jury 
their respective versions. Sterling read with great ef- 
fect, and he seemed to emphasize of his own accord the 
high lights, oratorical flights and dramatic climaxes 
contained in the bulky printed manuscript he held in 
his hand. There were many moist eyes in the court 
room while Sterling read the speech, and the jury gave 
it strict attention. Only the prosecutors seemed to 
effect infinite weariness. With minor and slight reserva- 
tions Debs stated that the Sterling version was correct. 

During a ten-minute recess that day Debs walked to 
the back of the court room where young Steimer was 
sitting, and, putting his hands on the shoulders of the 
boy, assured him that he had done the best he could 


Se KORO La Td ke ST 
TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 21 


under the circumstances, and told him not to feel hu- 
miliated in the least, that his abilities in that line had 
been unfairly taxed. The youth was nearly in tears as 
’Gene gently patted his face and told him not to worry. 
On another similar occasion, when Miller had concluded 
his testimony and took his seat at the press table, "Gene 
left his chair and leaning over the shoulders of news- 
paper men said very softly to Miller: 

““Mr. Miller, all that you said about me is true. You 
quoted me straight and accurate. I don’t want you ever 
to feel that you have done me an injury by testifying 
against me; You had to do it, and you did it like a 
gentleman. We all do what we cannot possibly help 
doing, and no blame or stigma attaches to any of us 
for doing that.’’ 

On Wednesday, September 11, shortly before 11 
o’clock counsel for the government informed the court 
that the prosecution had presented its case. The heads 
of Debs’s four lawyers bent together in a conference 
that lasted exactly one minute; then Stedman informed 
the court that the defense also rested its case. Debs 
had been fully cognizant of this move beforehand. I 
am told that it was originally his desire to caution his 
attorneys against making even an opening statement in 
his behalf. If such had been his intention, it was doubt- 
lessly prompted by his feeling of certainty that, under 
the circumstances, it would be useless to make a defense 
when he held, in the first instance, that the Espionage 
Act was a flagrant violation of the Federal Constitu- 
tion, and that the constitutionality of the act itself had 
never been determined by the Supreme Court. 

Debs and his counsel retired to an ante-room and 
when they returned Stedman briefly announced to the 
court: ‘‘Mr. Debs will plead his case before the jury.’’ 
Debs had been working during the night on the address 
that he was now to make. I remember seeing him in 
his room at the Gillsy House from my own room, just 


22 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


across an areaway, Sitting at his window, clad in pa- 
jamas, calmly smoking a long black cigar, with a paper 
pad resting on his knee and jotting down notes for the 
speech that will, it has been said, take its place as a 
classic of oratory and as a libertarian exposition. Cer- 
tainly, it is one of the most remarkable speeches deliv- 
ered by a defendant before a jury. _ 

Assistant District Attorney Breitenstein opened final 
arguments for the government. He paid a glowing trib- 
ute to Debs as a man, but condemned his word. ‘‘God 
only knows the harm he has done the United States by 
his fiery eloquence,’’ said the prosecutor. Debs had a 
kind word and warm smile for the prosecutor when he 
had concluded, and they exchanged handclasps across 
the table. At that moment that table seemed wider 
than the seven seas, so far apart were the intellectual 
and social leanings of these two men, now smiling into 
each other’s face in comradely manner. 

The luncheon recess was announced by the court. 
In the corridor Debs was instantly surrounded by an 
ever-growing group of friends and followers. With diffi- 
culty he made his way to the elevator, and walked 
straight to his hotel. He partook of no luncheon, pre- 
ferring to go to his room to be alone with his thoughts. 
Long before the court was opened for afternoon session 
the federal building was jammed with struggling hu- 
manity, trying to edge its way toward the courtroom. 
The doors were flung open and there ensued a veritable 
stampede for seats on the painfully straight benches. 
Spectators perched themselves on window ledges, and 
crowded every aisle. When the last available inch had 
been occupied the doors were locked, shutting out ten 
times as many people as were in the room. The mo- 
ment was tense with dramatic interest and expectancy. 
Judge Westenhaver warned the spectators that any at- 
tempt to applaud or otherwise show approval or disap- 
proval would be sharply and sternly dealt with. The 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 23 


twelve men in the jury box shifted to attention in their 
seats. Reporters had sharpened the points of a dozen 
pencils in order not to miss a word of Debs’s plea for his 
rights as an American citizen. 

He arose from his seat beside his counsel, and slowly 
walked over to the jury. With right hand extended, 
the arm crooked at the elbow, the left hand placed 
firmly at his side, he commenced. 

““May it please the Court, and Gentlemen of the 
Jury :* 

**For the first time in my life I appear before a jury 

‘in a court of law to answer to an indictment for crime. 
I am not a lawyer. I know little about court procedure, 
about the rules of evidence or legal practice. I know 
only that you gentlemen are to hear the evidence brought 
against me, that the Court is to instruct you in the law, 
and that you are then to determine by your verdict 
whether I shall be branded with criminal guilt and be 
consigned, perhaps to the end of my life, in a felon’s 
eell. 

“Gentlemen, I do not fear to face you in this hour 
of accusation, nor do I shrink from the consequences of 
my utterances or my acts. Standing before you, charged 
as I am with crime, I can yet look the Court in the 
face, I can look you in the face, I can look the world 
in the face, for In my conscience, in my soul, there 
is festering no accusation of guilt. 

“‘Permit me to say in the first place that I am en- 
tirely satisfied with the Court’s ruling. I have no fault 
to find with the district attorney or with the counsel for 
the prosecution. 

**T wish to admit the trutn of all that has been testi- 
fied to in this proceeding. I have no disposition to deny 
anything that is true. I would not, if I could, escape 
the results of an adverse verdict. I would not retract 


* Because of its importance, Debs’s speech has been included in 
its entirety. 


24. DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


a word that I have uttered that I believe to be true to 
save myself from going to the penitentiary for the rest 
of my days. 

‘‘T am charged in the indictment, first, that I did 
willfully cause and attempt to cause or incite, insubordi- 
nation, mutiny, disloyalty and refusal of duty within 
the military forces of the United States; that E-did ob- 
struct and attempt to obstruct the recruiting and enlist- 
ment service of the United States. I am charged also 
with uttering words intended to bring into contempt and 
disrepute the form of government of the United States, 
the Constitution of the United States, the military forces 
of the United States, the flag of the United States, and 
the uniform of the army and navy.’’ 

Tue Court: ‘‘Mr. Debs, permit me to say that the 
last charge which you have read to the jury has been 
withdrawn from their consideration by the Court.”’ 

Dezss: ‘‘Pardon me. I was not aware of that.’’ 

Tue Court: ‘‘I have directed a verdict of ‘not 
guilty’ as to that charge.”’ 

Dess: ‘‘I am accused further of uttering words in- 
tended to procure and incite resistance to the United 
States and to promote the cause of the Imperial German 
Government. 

“Gentlemen, you have heard the report of my speech 
at Canton on June 16, and I submit that there is not 
a word in that speech to warrant these charges. J ad- 
mit having delivered the speech. I admit the accuracy 
of the speech in all of its main features as reported in 
this proceeding. There were two distinct reports. They 
vary somewhat, but they are agreed upon all the ma- 
terial statements embodied in that speech. 

“In what I had to say there my purpose was to edu- 
cate the people to understand something about the 
social system in which we live and to prepare them to 
change this system by perfectly peaceable and orderly 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 25 


means into what I, as a Socialist, conceive to be a real de- 
mocracy. 

**F'rom what you heard in the address of counsel for 
the prosecution, you might naturally infer that I am 
an advocate of force and violence. It is not true. I 
have never advocated violence in any form. I always 
believed in education, in intelligence, in enlightenment, 
and I have always made my appeal to the reason and 
to the conscience of the people. 

“‘T admit being opposed to the present form of gov- 
ernment. I admit being opposed to the present social 
system. I am doing what little I can, and have been 
for many years, to bring about a change that shall do 
away with the rule of the great body of the people by 
a relatively small class and establish in this country an 
industrial and social democracy. 

““Tn the course of the speech that resulted in this in- 
dictment, I am charged with having expressed sympathy 
for Kate Richards O’Hare,* for Rose Pastor Stokes, for 
Ruthenberg,t Wagenknecht + and Baker.t I did ex- 
press my perfect sympathy with these comrades of mine. 
I have known them for many years. I have every rea- 
son to believe in their integrity, every reason to look 
upon them with respect, with confidence and with ap- 
proval. 

““Kate Richards O’Hare never uttered the words im- 
puted to her in the report. The words are perfectly 
brutal. She is not capable of using such language. I 
know that through all of the years of her life she has 
been working in the interests of the suffering, struggling 
poor, that she has consecrated all of her energies, all 
of her abilities, to their betterment. The same is true 


* Mrs. Kate Richards O’Hare, Socialist worker of St. Louis, Mo., 
convicted and serving a sentence of five years at Jefferson City, 
Mo., prison for making a speech alleged to be in violation of the 
Espionage Law. 

7 C. E. Ruthenberg, Alfred Wagenknecht and Charles Baker, 
Cleveland Socialists, sentenced to serve one year each at the Stark 
. County workhouse for infractions of the military iaws in 1917. 


26° DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


of Rose Pastor Stokes. Through all her life she has 
been on the side of the oppressed and downtrodden. 
If she were so inclined she might occupy a place of ease. 
She might enjoy all of the comforts and leisures of life. 
Instead of this, she has renounced them all. She has 
taken her place among the poor, and’ there she has 
worked with all of her ability, all of her energy, to make 
it possible for them to enjoy a little more of the com- 
forts of life. 

‘*T said that if these women whom I have known all 
of these years—that if they were criminals, if they 
ought to go to the penitentiary, then I, too, am a ecrim- 
inal, and I ought to be sent to prison. I have not a 
word to retract—not one. I uttered the truth. I made 
no statement in that speech that I am not prepared to 
prove. If there is a single falsehood in it, it has not 
been exposed. If there is a single statement in it that 
will not bear the light of truth, I will retract it. I 
will make all of the reparation in my power. But if 
what I said is true, and I believe it is, then whatever 
fate or fortune may have in store for me I shall pre- 
serve inviolate the integrity of my soul and stand by 
it to the end. 

‘When I said what I did about the three comrades 
of mine who are in the workhouse at Canton, I had in 
mind what they had been ever since I have known them 
in the service of the working class. I had in mind the 
fact that these three working men had just a little while 
before had their hands cuffed and were strung up in that 
prison house for eight hours at a time until they fell 
to the floor fainting from exhaustion. And this because 
they had refused to do some menial, filthy services that 
were an insult to their dignity and their manhood. 

‘*T have been accused of expressing sympathy for’ the 
Bolsheviki of Russia. I plead guilty to the charge. I 
have read a great deal about the Bolsheviki of Russia 
that is not true. I happen to know of my own knowl- 


4 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 27 


edge that they have been grossly misrepresented by the 
press of this country. Who are these much-maligned 
revolutionists of Russia? For years they had been the 
victims of a brutal Czar. They and their antecedents 
were sent to Siberia, lashed with a knout, if they even 
dreamed of freedom. At last the hour struck for a 
great change. The revolution came. The Czar was 
overthrown and his infamous regime ended. What fol- 
lowed? The common people of Russia came into power 
—the peasants, the toilers, the soldiers—and they pro- 
ceeded as best they could to establish a government of 
the people.’’ 

District ATTORNEY Wertz: ‘‘If the Court please, I 
would like to ask the Court to instruct the defendant 
that his arguments are to be confined to the evidence 
in the ease. There isn’t any evidence in this case about 
the Bolsheviki at all or the Russian revolution.’’ 

Tue Court: ‘‘I think I will permit the defendant 
to proceed in his own way. Of course, you are not a 
lawyer, Mr. Debs. The usual rule is that the remarks 
of counsel should be confined to the testimony in the 
ease, but it does not forbid counsel from making refer- 
ences to facts or matters of general public history or 
notoriety by way of illustrating your arguments and 
comments upon the testimony in the case. So I will 
permit you to proceed in your own way.”’ 

Dess: ‘‘Thank you. It may be that the much-despised 
Bolsheviki may fail at last, but let me say to you that 
they have written a chapter of glorious history. It 
will stand to their eternal credit. The leaders are now 
denounced as criminals and outlaws. Let me remind 
you that there was a time when George Washington, 
who is now revered as the father of his country, was 
denounced as a disloyalist; when Sam Adams, who is 
known to us as the father of the American Revolution, 
Was condemned as an incendiary, and Patrick Henry, 
who delivered that inspired and inspiring oration, that 


28 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


aroused the Colonists, was condemned as a traitor. They 
were misunderstood at the time. They stood true to 
themselves, and they won an immortality of gratitude 
and glory. 

‘“When great changes occur in history, when great 
principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. 
The minority are right. In every age there have been 
a few heroic souls who have been in advance of their 
time who have been misunderstood, maligned, perse- 
cuted, sometimes put to death. Long after their mar- 
tyrdom monuments were erected to them and garlands 
were woven for their graves. 

‘‘T have been accused of having obstructed the war. 
I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose 
the war if I stood alone. When I think of a cold, 
glittering steel bayonet being plunged in the white, 
quivering flesh of a human being, I recoil with horror. 
I have often wondered if I could take the life of my 
fellow man, even to save my own. 

“Men talk about holy wars. There are none. Let me 
remind you that it was Benjamin Franklin who said, 
‘There never was a good war or a bad peace.’ 

‘‘Napoleon Bonaparte was a high authority upon the 
subject of war. And when in his last days he was 
chained to the rock at St. Helena, when he felt the skele- 
ton hand of death reaching for him, he eried out in 
horror, ‘ War is the trade of savages and barbarians.’ 

“‘T have read some history. I know that it is ruling 
classes that make war upon one another, and not the 
people. In all of the history of this world the people 
have never yet declared a war. Not one. I do not be- 
lieve that really civilized nations would murder one 
another. I would refuse to kill a human being on my 
own account. Why should I at the command of any 
one else, or at the command of any power on earth? 

‘‘Twenty centuries ago there was one appeared upon 
earth we know as the Prince of Peace. He issued a 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 29 


command in which I believe. He said, ‘Love one an- 
other.’ He did not say, ‘Kill one another,’ but ‘love one 
another.” He espoused the cause of the suffering poor 
—just as Rose Pastor Stokes did, just as Kate Richards 
O’Hare did—and the poor heard him gladly. It was not 
long before he aroused the ill will and hatred of the 
usurers, the money changers, the profiteers, the high 
priests, the lawyers, the judges, the merchants, the 
bankers—in a word, the ruling class. They said of him 
just what the ruling class says of the Socialist to-day, 
“He is preaching dangerous doctrine. He is inciting 
the common rabble. He is a menace to peace and order.’ 
And they had him arraigned, tried, convicted, con- 
’ demned, and they had his quivering body spiked to the 
gates of Jerusalem. 

““This has been the tragic history of the race. In the 
ancient world Socrates sought to teach some new truths 
to the people, and they made him drink the fatal hem- 
lock. It has been true all along the track of the ages. 
The men and women who have been in advance, who 
have had new ideas, new ideals, who have had the cour- 
age to attack the established order of things, have all 
had to pay the same penalty. 

**A century and a half ago, when the American col- 
onists were still foreign subjects, and when there were 
a few men who had faith in the common people and 
believed that they could rule themselves without a king, 
in that day to speak against the king was treason. If 
you read Bancroft or any other standard historian, you 
will find that a great majority of the colonists believed 
in the king and actually believed that he had a divine 
right to rule over them. They had been taught to 
believe that to say a word against the king, to question 
his so-called divine right, was sinful. There were min- 
isters who opened their Bibles to prove that it was the 
patriotic duty of the people to loyally serve and sup- 
port the king. But there were a few men in that day 


30 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


who said, ‘We don’t need a king. We can govern our- 
selves.’ And they began an agitation that has been 
immortalized in history. 

‘‘Washington, Adams, Paine—these were the rebels 
of their day. At first they were opposed by the people 
and denounced by the press. You can remember that 
it was Franklin who said to his compeers, ‘We have now 
to hang together or we’ll hang separately by and by.’ 
And if the Revolution had failed, the revolutionary 
fathers would have been executed as felons. But it did 
not fail. Revolutions have a habit of succeeding when 
the time comes for them. The revolutionary forefathers 
were opposed to the form of government in their day. 
They were opposed to the social system of their time. 
They were denounced, they were condemned. But they 
had the moral courage to stand erect and defy all the 
storms of detraction; and that is why they are in his- 
tory, and that is why the great respectable majority of 
their day sleep in forgotten graves. The world does not 
know they ever lived. 

‘‘At a later time there began another mighty agita- 
tion in this country. It was against an institution that 
was deemed a very respectable one in its time, the in- 
stitution of chattel slavery, that became all-powerful, 
that controlled the President, both branches of Con- 
gress, the Supreme Court, the press, to a very large ex- 
tent the pulpit. All of the organized forces of society, 
all the powers of government, upheld chattle slavery in 
that day. And again there were a few lovers of liberty 
who appeared. One of them was Elijah Lovejoy. Elijah 
Lovejoy was as much despised in his day as are the 
leaders of the I. W. W. in our day. Elijah Lovejoy 
was murdered in cold blood in Alton, Illinois, in 1837 
simply because he was opposed to chattel slavery—just 
as I am opposed to wage'slavery. When you go down 
the Mississippi River and look up at Alton, you see a 
magnificent white shaft erected there in memory of a 


: 


F 
§ 
: 

\ 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 31 


man who was true to himself and his convictions of right 
and duty unto death. 

**Tt was my good fortune to personally know Wendell 
Phillips. I heard the story of his persecution in part, 
at least, from his own eloquent lips just a little while 
before they were silenced in death. 

‘‘William Lloyd Garrison, Garret Smith, Thaddeus 
Stevens—these leaders of the abolition movement, who 
were regarded as monsters of depravity, were true to 
the faith and stood their ground. They are all in his- 
tory. You are teaching your children to revere their 
memories, while all of their detractors are in oblivion. 

“‘Chattel slavery disappeared. We are not yet. free. 
We are engaged in another mighty agitation to-day. It 
is as wide as the world. It is the rise of the toiling and 
producing masses who are gradually becoming conscious 
of their interest, their power, as a class, who are organ- 
izing industrially and politically, who are slowly but 
surely developing the economic and political power that 
is to set them free. They are still in the minority, but 
they have learned how to wait, and to bide their time. 

“Tt is because I happen to be in this minority that 
I stand in your presence to-day, charged with crime. 
It is because I believe, as the revolutionary fathers be- 
lieved in their day, that a change was due in the inter- 
ests of the people, that the time had come for a better 
form of government, an improved system, a higher so- 
cial order, a nobler humanity and a grander civilization. 
This minority that is so much misunderstood and so bit- 
terly maligned is in alliance with the forces of evolu- 
tion, and as certain as I stand before you this after- 
noon, it is but a question of time until this minority 
will become the conquering majority and inaugurate the 
greatest change in all of the history of the world. You 
may hasten the change; you may retard it; you can 
no more prevent it than you can prevent the coming of 
the sunrise on the morrow. 


32 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


‘‘My friend, the assistant prosecutor, doesn’t lke 
what I had to say in my speech about internationalism. 
What is there objectionable to internationalism? If 
we had internationalism there would be no war. I be- 
lieve in patriotism, I have never uttered a word against 
the flag. I love the flag as a symbol of freedom. I ob- 
ject only when that flag is prostituted to base purposes, 
to sordid ends, by those who, in the name of patriotism, 
would keep the people in subjection. 

“*T believe, however, in a wider patriotism. Thomas 
Paine said, ‘My country is the world. To do good is 
my religion.’ Garrison said, ‘My country is the world 
and all mankind are my countrymen.’ That is the es- 
sence of internationalism. I believe in it with all of my 
heart. I believe that nations have been pitted against na- 
tions long enough in hatred, in strife, in warfare. I be- 
lieve there ought to be a bond of unity between all of 
these nations. I believe that the human race consists of 
one great family. I love the people of this country, but I 
don’t hate the people of any country on earth—not even 
the Germans. I refuse to hate a human being because he 
happens to be born in some other country. Why should 
I? To me it does not make any difference where he was 
born or what the color of his skin may be. Like myself, 
he is the image of his creator. He is a human being 
endowed with the same faculties, he has the same aspira- 
tions, he is entitled to the same rights, and I would in- 
finitely rather serve him and love him than to hate him 
and kill him. 

‘“We hear a great deal about human brotherhood— 
a beautiful and inspiring theme. It is preached from 
a countless number of pulpits. It is vain for us to 
preach of human brotherhood while we tolerate this 
social system in which we are a mass of warring units, 
in which millions of workers have to fight one another 
for jobs, and millions of business men and professional 
men have to fight one another for trade, for practice— 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 33 


in which we have individual interests and each is striv- 
ing to care for himself alone without reference to his 
fellow men. Human brotherhood is yet to be realized 
in this world. It can never be under the capitalist- 
competitive system in which we live. 

“Yes, I was opposed to the war. I am perfectly will- 
ing, on that count, to be branded as a disloyalist, and 
if it is a crime under the American law, punishable by 
imprisonment, for being opposed to human bloodshed, 
I am perfectly willing to be clothed in the stripes of a 
convict and to end my days in a prison cell. 

“Tf my friends, the attorneys, had known me a little 
better they might have saved themselves some trouble 
in procuring evidence to prove certain things against 
me which I have not the slightest mclination to deny, 
but rather, upon the other hand, I have a very consid- 
erable pride in. 

*“You have heard a great deal about the St. Louis 
platform. I wasn’t at the convention when that plat- 
form was adopted, but I don’t ask to be excused from 
my responsibility on that account. I voted for its adop- 
tion. I believe in its essential principles. There was 
some of its phrasing that I would have otherwise. I 
afterwards advocated a restatement. The testimony to 
the effect that I had refused to repudiate it was true. 

*“At the time that platform was adopted the nation 
had just entered upon the war and there were millions 
of people who were not Socialists who were opposed to 
the United States being precipitated into that war. 
Time passed; conditions changed. There were certain 
new developments and I believed there should be a 
restatement. I have been asked why I did not favor a 
repudiation of what was said a year before. For the rea- 
son that I believed then, as I believe now, that the state- 
ment correctly defined the attitude of the Socialist Party 
toward war. That statement, bear in mind, did not 
apply to the people of this country alone, but to the 


34 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


people of the world. It said, in effect, to the people; 
especially to the workers, of all countries, ‘Quit going 
to war. Stop murdering one another for the profit and 
glory of the ruling classes. Cultivate the arts of peace. 
Humanize humanity. Civilize civilization.’ That is 
the essential spirit and the appeal of the much-hated, 
condemned St. Louis platform. 

™ “Now, the Republican and Democratic parties hold 
their conventions from time to time. They revise their 
platforms and their declarations. They do not repudi- 
ate previous platforms. Nor is it necessary. With the 
change of conditions these platforms are outgrown and 
others take their places. I was not in the convention, 
but I believed in that platform. I do today. But 
from the beginning of the war to this day, I have never, 
by word or act, been guilty of the charges that are em- 
braced in this indictment. If I have eriticized, if I 
ever condemned, it is because I have believed myself 
justified in doing so under the laws of the land. I 
have had precedents for my attitude. This country has 
been engaged in a number of wars, and every one of 
them has been opposed, every one of them has been 
condemned by some of the most eminent men in the 
country. The war of the Revolution was opposed. The 
Tory press denounced its leaders as criminals and out- 
laws. And that was when they were under the ‘divine 
right’ of a king to rule men. 

‘‘The War of 1812 was opposed and condemned ; the 
Mexican war was bitterly condemned by Abraham Lin- 
coln, by Charles Sumner, by Daniel Webster and by 
Henry Clay. That war took place under the Polk ad- 
ministration. These men denounced the President; they 
condemned his administration; and they said that the 
war was a crime against humanity. They were not in- 
dicted; they were not tried for crime. They are hon- 
ored to-day by all of their countrymen. The War of 
the Rebellion was opposed and condemned. In 1864 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 35 


the Democratic Party met in convention at Chicago and 
passed a resolution condemning the war as a failure. 
What would you say if the Socialist Party were to meet 
in convention to-day and condemn the present war as a 
failure? You charge us with being disloyalists and 
traitors. Were the Democrats of 1864 disloyalists and 
traitors because they condemned the war as a failure? 

“‘T believe in the Constitution of the United States. 
Isn’t it strange that we Socialists stand almost alone 
to-day in defending the Constitution of the United 
States? The revolutionary fathers who had been op- 
pressed under king rule understood that free speech 
and free press and the right of free assemblage by the 
people were the fundamental principles of democratic 
government. The very first amendment to the Consti- 
tution reads: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting 
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free ex- 
ereise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or 
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress 
of grievances.’ That is perfectly plain English. It 
can be understood by a child. I believe that the revolu- 
tionary fathers meant just what is here stated—that 
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of 
speech or of the press, or of the right of the people to 
peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for 
a redress of grievances. 

“‘That is the right that I exercised at Canton on the 
16th day of last June; and for the exercise of that right 
I now have to answer to this indictment. I believe in 
the right of free speech in war as well as in peace. I 
would not, under any circumstances, gag the lips of my 
biggest enemy. I would under no circumstances sup- 
press free speech. It is far more dangerous to attempt 
to gag the people than to allow them to speak freely 
of what is in their hearts. I do not go as far as Wen- 
dell Phillips did. Wendell Phillips said that the glory 


36 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


of free men is that they trample unjust laws under their 
feet. That is how they repealed them. If a human 
being submits to having his lips sealed, to be in silence 
reduced to vassalage, he may have all else, but he is 
still lacking in all that dignifies and glorifies real man- 
hood. WA 

“Now, notwithstanding this fundamental provision in 
the national law, Socialists’ meetings have been broken 
up all over this country. Socialist speakers have been 
arrested by hundreds and flung into jail, where many 
of them are lying now. In some cases not even a charge 
was lodged against them, guilty of absolutely no crime 
except the crime of attempting to exercise the right 
guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United 
States. 

**T have told you that I am no lawyer, but it seems 
to me that I know enough to know that if Congress 
enacts any law that conflicts with this provision in the 
Constitution, that law is void. If the Espionage Law 
finally stands, then the Constitution of the United States 
is dead. If that law is not the negation of every funda- 
mental principle established by the Constitution, then 
certainly I am unable to read or to understand the Eng- 
lish language. 

To THE Court: ‘‘Your Honor, I don’t know whether 
I would be in order to quote from a book I hold in my 
hand, called ‘The New Freedom,’ by Woodrow Wilson, 
President of the United States.”’ 

THE Court: ‘‘I will grant you that permission.’’ 

Dess: ‘‘I want to show the gentlemen of the jury, 
if I can, that every statement I made in my Canton 
speech is borne out in this book by Woodrow Wilson, 
called ‘The New Freedom.’ It consists of his cam- | 
paign speeches while a candidate for the presidency. 
Of course, he uses different language than I did, for 
he is a college professor. He is an educated gentleman. 
I never had a chance to get an education. I had to go 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 37 


to work in my childhood. I want to show you that 
the statement made by Rose Pastor Stokes, for which 
she has been convicted, and the approval of which has 
brought condemnation upon me, is substantially the © 
same statement made by Mr. Wilson when he was a 
candidate for the presidency of the United States: 

““*Today, when our government has so far passed 
into the hands of special interests; to-day, when the 
doctrine is implicitly avowed that only select classes 
have the equipment necessary for carrying on govern- 
ment; to-day, when so many conscientious citizens, smit- 
ten with the scene of social wrong and suffering, have 
fallen victims to the fallacy that benevolent government 
can be meted out to the people by kind-hearted trustees 
of prosperity and guardians of the welfare of dutiful 
employees—to-day, supremely does it behoove this na- 
tion to remember that a people shall be saved by the 
power that sleeps in its own deep bosom, or by none; 
shall be renewed in hope, in conscience, in strength, by 
waters welling up from its own sweet, perennial springs.’ 

“‘So this government has passed into the hands of 
special interests. Rose Pastor Stokes’ language is some- 
what different. Instead of ‘special interests’ she said 
‘profiteers.’ She said that a government that was for 
the profiteers could not be for the people, and that as 
long as the government was for the profiteers, she was 
for the people. That is the statement that I indorsed, 
approved and believed in with all my heart. The Presi- 
dent of the United States tells us that our government 
has passed into the control of special interests, When 
we Socialists make the same contention, we are branded 
as disloyalists, and we are indicted as criminals. But 
that is not all, nor nearly all: 

*““There are, of course, Americans who have not yet 
heard that anything is going on. The circus might 
come to town, have the big parade and go, without their 
catching a sight of the camels or a note of the calliope. 


38 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — 


There are people, even Americans, who never move 
themselves or know that anything else is moving.’ 

‘‘Just one other quotation: ‘For a long time this 
country of ours has lacked one of the institutions which 
free men have always and everywhere held fundamental. 
For a long time there has been no sufficient opportunity 
of counsel among the people; no place and method of 
talk, of exchange of opinion, of parley. Communities 
have outgrown the folk-moot and the town meeting. 
Congress, in accordance with the genius of the land, 
which asks for action and is impatient of words—Con- 
gress has become an institution which does its work in 
the privacy of committee rooms and not on the floor of 
the Chamber; a body that makes laws, a legislature; 
not a body that debates, not a parliament. Party con- 
ventions afford little or no opportunity for discussion ; 
platforms are privately manufactured and adopted with 
a whoop. It is partly because citizens have foregone 
the taking of counsel together that the unholy alliances 
of bosses and Big Business have been able to assume to 
govern for us. 

‘* “T conceive it to be one of the needs of the hour ~ 
to restore the processes of common counsel, and to sub- 
stitute them for the processes of private arrangement 
which now determine the policies of cities, states and 
nation. We must learn, we freemen, to meet, as our © 
fathers did, somehow, somewhere, for consultation. 
There must be discussion and debate, in which all freely 
participate.’ ”’ 

‘‘Well, there has been something said in connection - 
with this about profiteering—in connection with this 
indictment. / 

To tHE Court: ‘‘Would it be in order for me to 
read a brief statement, showing to what extent profiteer- ‘ 
ing has been carried on during the last three years?’’ © 

Tue Court: ‘‘No. There would be no concensus of 
opinion or agreement upon that statement. It is a mat-— 


% 
ay 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 39 


ter that is not really in the case, and when you go to com- 
pile a statement, you are then undertaking to assume 
something without producing evidence to substantiate it.’’ 

Depss: ‘*Now, in the course of this proceeding you, 
gentlemen, have perhaps drawn the inference that I 
am pro-German, in the sense that I have any sym- 
pathy with the Imperial Government of Germany. My 
father and mother were born in Alsace. They loved 
France with a passion that is holy. They understood 
the meaning of Prussianism, and they hated it with 
all their hearts. I did not need to be taught to hate 
Prussian militarism. I knew from them what a hateful, 
what an oppressive, what a brutalizing thing it was and 
is. I cannot imagine how any one could suspect that 
for one moment I could have the slightest sympathy 
with such a monstrous thing. I have been speaking 
and writing against it practically all of my life. I 
know that the Kaiser incarnates all there is of brute 
force and of murder. And yet I would not, if I had 
the power, kill the Kaiser. I would do to him what 
Thomas Paine wanted to do to the king of England. 
He said, ‘Destroy the king, but save the man.’ 

‘‘The thing that the Kaiser incarnates and embodies, 
called militarism, I would, if I could, wipe from the 
face of the earth,—not only the militarism of Germany, 
but the militarism of the whole world. I am quite 
well aware of the fact that the war now deluging the 
world with blood was precipitated there. Not by the 
German people, but by the class that rules, oppresses, 
robs and degrades the German people. President 
Wilson has repeatedly said that we were not making 
war on the German people, and yet in war it is the 
people who are slain, and not the rulers who are respon- 
sible for the war. 

‘‘With every drop in my veins I despise kaiserism, 
and all that kaiserism expresses and implies. I have 
Sympathy with the suffering, struggling people every- 


40 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


where. It does not make any difference under what 
flag they were born, or where they live, I have sympathy — 
with them all. I would, if I could, establish a social 
system that would embrace them all. It is precisely at 
this point that we come to realize that there is a reason 
why the peoples of the various nations are pitted against 
each other in brutal warfare instead of being united in 
one all-embracing brotherhood. 

‘“War does not come by chance. War is not the re- 
sult of accident. There is a definite cause for war, 
especially a modern war. The war that began in Eu- 
rope can readily be accounted for. For the last forty 
years, under this international capitalist system, this 
exploiting system, these various nations of Europe have 
been preparing for the inevitable. And why? In all 
these nations the great industries are owned by a rela- 
tively small class. They are operated for the profit of 
that class. And great abundance is produced by the 
workers; but their wages will only buy back a small 
part of their product. What is the result? They have 
a vast surplus on hand; they have got to export it; they 
have got to find a foreign market for it: As a result 
of this these nations are pitted against each other. 
They are industrial rivals—competitors. They begin to 
arm themselves to open, to maintain the market and 
quickly dispose of their surplus. There is but the one. 
market. All these nations are competitors for it, and 
sooner or later every war of trade becomes a war of 
blood. 

‘‘Now, where there is exploitation there must be 
some form of militarism to support it. Wherever you 
find exploitation you find some form: of military force. 
In a smaller way you find it in this country. It 
was there long before war was declared. For in- 
stance, when the miners out in Colorado entered upon 
a strike about four years ago, the state militia, that is 
under the control of the Standard Oil Company, 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 41 


marched upon a camp, where the miners and their wives 
and children were in tents,—and, by the way, a report 
of this strike was issued by the United States Commis- 
sion on Industrial Relations. When the soldiers ap- 
proached the camp at Ludlow, where these miners, with 
their wives and children, were, the miners, to prove 
that they were patriotic, placed flags above their tents, 
and when the state militia, that is paid by Rockefeller 
and controlled by Rockefeller, swooped down upon that 
camp, the first thing they did was to shoot these United 
States flags into tatters. Not one of them was indicted 
or tried because he was a traitor to his country. Preg- 
nant women were killed, and a number of innocent chil- 
dren slain. This in the United States of America,— 
the fruit of exploitation. The miners wanted a little 
more of what they had been producing. But the 
Standard Oil Company wasn’t rich enough. It insisted 
that all they were entitled to was just enough to keep 
them in working order. There is slavery for you. And 
when at last they protested, when they were tormented 
by hunger, when they saw their children in tatters, they 
were shot down as if they had been so many vagabond 
dogs. i 

*“And while I am upon this point let me say just 
another word. Workingmen who organize, and who 
sometimes commit overt acts, are very often times con- 
demned by those who have no conception of the con- 
ditions under which they live. How many men are 
there, for instance, who know anything of their own 
knowledge about how men work in a Jumber camp—a 
logging camp, a turpentine camp? In this report of 
the United States Commission on Industrial Relations 
you will find the statement proved that peonage existed 
in the state of Texas. Out of these conditions springs 
such a thing as the I.W.W.—When men receive a pit- 
tance for their pay, when they work like galley slaves 
for a wage that barely suffices to keep their protesting 


42 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


souls within their tattered bodies. When they can en- 
dure the conditions no longer, and they make some sort 
of a demonstration, or perhaps commit acts of violence, 
how quickly are they condemned by those who do not 
know anything about the conditions under which they 
work! 

“‘Five gentlemen of distinction, among them Professor 
John Graham Brooks, of Harvard University, said that 
a word that so fills the world as the I.W.W. must have 
something in it. It must be investigated. And they 
did investigate it, each along his own lines, and I wish 
it were possible for every man and woman in this coun- 
try to read the result of their investigation. They tell 
you why and how the I.W.W. was instituted. They tell 
you, moreover, that the great corporations, such as the 
Standard Oil Company, such as the Coal Trust, and the 
Lumber Trust, have, through their agents, committed 
more crimes against the I.W.W. than the I.W.W. have 
ever committed against them. 

“‘T was asked not long ago if I was in favor of shoot- 
ing our soldiers in the back. I said, ‘No, I would not 
shoot them in the back. I wouldn’t shoot them at all. 
I would not have them shot.’ Much has been made of 


a statement that I declared that men were fit for some- 


thing better than slavery and cannon fodder. I made 
the statement. I make no attempt to deny it. I meant 
exactly what I said. Men are fit for something better 
than slavery and cannon fodder; and the time will come, 
though I shall not live to see it, when slavery will be 
wiped from the earth, and when men will marvel that 
there ever was a time when men who ealled themselves 
civilized rushed upon each other like wild beasts and 
murdered one another, by methods so cruel and bar- 
barous that they defy the power of man to describe. I 
can hear the shrieks of the soldiers of HKurope in my 
dreams. I have imagination enough to see a battle- 
field. I can see it strewn with the legs of human beings, 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 43: 


who but yesterday were in the flush and glory of their 
young manhood. I can see them at eventide, scattered 
about in remnants, their limbs torn from their bodies, 
their eyes gouged out. Yes, I can see them, and I can 
hear them. I have looked above and beyond this fright- 
ful scene. I think of the mothers who are bowed in 
the shadow of their last great grief—whose hearts are 
breaking. And I say to myself, ‘I am going to do the 
little that lies in my power to wipe from this earth 
that terrible scourge of war.’ 

*‘Tf I believed in war I could not be kept out of the 
first line trenches. I would not be patriotic at long 
range. I would be honest enough, if I believed in blood- 
shed, to shed my own. But I do not believe that the 
shedding of blood bears any actual testimony to patri- 
otism, to lead a country to civilization. On the con- 
trary, I believe that warfare, in all of its forms, is an 
impeachment of our social order, and a rebuke to our 
much vaunted Christian civilization. 

*“And now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I am not going 
to detain you too long. I wish to admit everything that 
has been said respecting me from this witness chair. 
I wish to admit everything that has been charged against 
me except what is embraced in the indictment which I 
have read to you. I cannot take back a word. I can’t 
repudiate a sentence. I stand before you guilty of hav- 
ing made this speech. I stand before you prepared to 
accept the consequences of what there is embraced in 
that speech. I do not know, I cannot tell, what your 
verdict may be; nor does it matter much, so far as I 
am concerned. 

‘Gentlemen, I am the smallest part of this trial. I 
have lived long enough to appreciate my own personal 
insignificance in relation to a great issue that involves 
the welfare of the whole people. What you may choose 
to do to me will be of small consequence after all. Iam 
not on trial here. There is an infinitely greater issue 


44. DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


that is being tried in this court, though you may not 
be conscious of it. American institutions are on trial — 
here before a court of American citizens. The future 
will tell. at 

‘‘And now, Your Honor, permit me to return my 
hearty thanks for your patient consideration. And to 
you, Gentlemen of the Jury, for the kindness with which 
you have listened to me. 

‘‘My fate is in your hands. I am prepared for the 
verdict.’ 

Debs had ispoken for the better part of two hours. 
If there had resided any doubt in the minds of his 
friends and followers in the courtroom as to his fate, 
after hearing his speech to the jury it vanished. His 
jury speech had been a restatement of his Canton ad- 
dress and an amplification of it. If his Canton speech 
warranted an indictment for crime what would his 
speech to his jury bring upon him? Debs made just 
the kind of a speech to the jury that the government 
counsel wanted him to make. He had admitted having 
obstructed the war. He would oppose it if he stood 
alone. He had approved of the I.W.W., 101 of whose 
national officers, organizers, editors and speakers, in- 
eluding William D. Haywood, general secretary- 
treasurer, had been convicted and sentenced to prison 
for terms ranging from one to twenty years, only a 
few weeks before his own trial began. The I.W.W. 
had been convicted of conspiracy to obstruct the gov- 
ernment in prosecuting the war. Debs had not availed 
himself of a single legal loop through which he might 
-escape a prison sentence. His manner of speech was 
not defiant, but calm, composed and candid. He said 
all that he believed to be true on a number of public 
questions. Even in that courtroom, on that late sum- 
mer’s afternoon, in a moment when the whole nation 
Was aroused by war, when American soldiers were at 
the throat of a fast-weakening and retreating foe across 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 45 


the seas, Debs still pleaded with twelve average Ameri- 
can citizens to give a thought to the Constitution of 
the land which guaranteed to a minority citizenry a free 
and public expression of political opinions. It was an 
astonishing request, so simple, naive and child-like. It 
was like asking men whose homes had just been up- 
rooted by a hurricane or tidal wave to remember the 
soft and odorous nights of June whose breezes were so 
gentle as not to stir a maple leaf. Debs resumed his 
seat amid the silent plaudits of his followers. For he 
had set one more example for the libertarians of the 
world to follow if they would be true to their convic- 
tions. An agent of the Department of Justice who 
had been more or less active in assisting the prosecution 
said to one of the journalists at the press table: ‘‘You’ve 
got to hand it to the old man, he came through clean.”’ 

District Attorney Wertz spoke for the remainder of 
the day in final argument for the government. The 
prosecutor roundly denounced Debs and the Socialists, 
as was his duty, and said that all rights of free speech 
were adjourned. He stated that it was possible that 
the reason Abraham Lincoln was not arrested and con- 
victed for criticizing President Polk in 1846 for waging 
war against Mexico was because there was no Espionage 
Law at that time to apply. The prosecutor even said 
that Debs would be apt to carry his right to free speech 
to the extent of yelling ‘‘fire’’ in a crowded theater if 
it pleased him to do so. 

At the conclusion of that court day Debs was greeted 
outside the doors by a throng of Socialists and ad- 
mirers who had been unable to gain admittance. A 
young girl who had been standing. in the crowd out- 
side the doors all day long pushed her way by sheer 
force through the crowd to Debs’s side. In her arms 
she carried a huge bouquet of red roses caught at the 
stems with a wide splash of red satin ribbon. She 
thrust the flowers into ’Gene’s arms, and then swooned, 


46 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Debs catching her and holding her in his long, lean 
arms. He carried her into an ante-room, kissing her 
brow and saying: ‘‘I would rather have lived to witness 
this token of love and generosity of my unknown com- 
rade than to have my freedom. These are the incidents 
that make life so full and fine.’’ 

That night he remained in his room writing letters 
and smoking. I visited him for a few moments and 
expressed my admiration for the address he had made. 
‘“Well,’’ he said quietly, ‘‘this time to-morrow we shall 
know how much American citizens care for liberty and 
their Constitution.’’ He said that for him everything 
was all right, that he had not the least concern over 
what the verdict might be. ‘‘‘I have made my bed 
and am prepared to lie in it.’ ”’ 

The following day, September 12th, Judge Westen- 
haver delivered his instructions to the jury. In effect, 
the court told the jury that it was not a crime for a 
person to disapprove of the war, or even to criticize 
the Administration and the conduct of the war, so long 

‘as such criticism and disapproval was not made with 
criminal intent. The jury was instructed that the Hs- 
pionage Law, even in its amended form, was not in- 
tended to stifle the opinions of freemen which may be 
at variance with those of the majority of the people 
and the government, and that if the jury found that 
Debs, in his Canton speech, had no criminal intent to 
thwart the energies of the government in the prosecu- 
tion of war with Germany it was clearly their duty to 
return a verdict of ‘‘not guilty.’’ It was not necessary, 
ruled the court, for the government to prove that the 
Canton speech had actually caused insubordination, in- 
cited mutiny and promoted the cause of Germany. It 
was sufficient if the jury believed that it was the specific 
intention of Debs to do these things. 

The jury was instructed to disregard the testimony 
of witnesses who appeared against Debs, the court stat- 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 47 


ing that such evidence was admitted only by way of 
indicating to the jury ‘‘the state of mind of the de- 
fendant.’’ With the constitutional right of free speech 
the court dealt at length, maintaining that the right 
should be denied and must be denied any person who 
willfully sought to obstruct the government in time of 
war, or tried to delay the production of materials neces- 
sary for its prosecution, or who interfered with the 
enlistment and recruiting service. The talesmen were 
told, finally, to disregard Debs’s statement that the Es- 
pionage Law was invalid because it abridged the Con- 
stitution, stating that that point was for the courts to 
determine. 

Shortly before eleven o’clock the jury retired to their 
room with a copy of the indictment and Debs’s Canton 
speech. The indictment had been stripped to three 
counts from its original ten, conviction on each count 
to carry a maximum sentence of twenty years imprison- 
ment and a fine of ten thousand dollars for each offense. 
While the jury debated, Debs sat at the counsel table 
and wrote letters and told stories and anecdotes to 
interested friends. He was in high spirits. Telegrams 
of congratulations from all parts of the country poured 
into his hands from followers who had read newspaper 
accounts of his address on the previous day. By six 
o’clock in the afternoon the jury reached its verdict of 
*‘Guilty as charged in the indictment.’’ The court 
fixed Saturday morning, September 14th, as the time 
for sentence. Debs spent the intervening day at Akron, 
Ohio, the home of Mrs. Marguerite Prevy, a personal 
friend, who was also a Socialist worker, and one of two 
of Debs’s bondsmen. While at Akron, Debs was visited 
by his lawyers, all of whom were Socialists, and who 
prevailed upon him to take advantage of the oppor- 
tunity that would be given him the following day to 
address the court before sentence should be imposed. I 
am told that Debs was at first disinclined to do this, 


-F 


48 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


feeling rather weary of the whole proceeding, but on 
second thought he was convinced that he should make 
the most of the situation by speaking fer the future. 

The proceeding on Saturday morning, September 
14th, was as follows: 

District ATTORNEY Wertz: ‘‘If the Court please, 
I move for the imposition of sentence.’”—__ 

JUDGE WESTENHAVER: (To the clerk) ‘‘You may 
inquire if the defendant has anything to say.’’ 

Tue CuerK: ‘‘Eugene V. Debs, have you anything 
further to say in your behalf before the Court passes 
sentence upon you?”’ 

Dress: ‘Your Honor, years ago I recognized my 
kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind 
that I was not one bit better than the meanest of earth. 
I said then, I say now, that while there is a lower class 
I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; 
while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. 4 

‘Tf the law under which I have been convicted is a 
good law, then there is no reason why sentence should 
not be pronounced upon me.~ I listened to all that was 
said in this court in support and justification of this 
law, but my mind remains unchanged. I look upon 
it as a despotic enactment in flagrant conflict with 
democratic principles and with the spirit of free insti- 
tutions. ‘v 

“‘T have no fault to find with this court or with the 
trial. Everything in connection with this case has 
been conducted upon a dignified plane, and in a respect- 
ful and decent spirit—with just one exception. Your 
Honor, my sainted mother inspired me with a reverence 
for womanhood that amounts to worship. I ean think 
with disrespect of no woman, and I can think with re- 
spect of no man who can. I resent the manner in which 
the names of two noble women were bandied with in 
this court. The levity and the wantonness in this in- 
stance were absolutely inexcusable. When I think of 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND “APPEAL 49 


what was said in this connection, I feel that when I pass 
a woman, even though it be a sister of the street, I should 
take off my hat and apologize to her for being a man. 
‘ "Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am 
opposed to the form of our present government; that I 
am opposed to the social system in which we live; that 
I believed in the change of both—but by perfectly peace- 
able and orderly means. % 

““Let me call your attention to the fact this morning 
that in this system five per cent of our people own and 
control two-thirds of our wealth; sixty-five per cent. 
of the people, embracing the working class who produce 
all wealth, have but five per cent to show for it. 
\\“‘Standing here this morning, I recall my boyhood. 
At fourteen, I went to work in the railroad shops; at 
sixteen, I was firing a freight engine on a railroad. I 
remember all the hardships, all the privations, of that 
earlier day, and from that time until now, my heart 
has been with the working class. I could have been in 
Congress long ago. I have preferred to go to prison.” 
The choice has been deliberately made. I could not 
have done otherwise. I have no regret. 

“In the struggle—the unceasing struggle—between 
the toilers and producers and their exploiters, I have 
tried, as best I might, to serve those among whom I 
was born, with whom I expect to share my lot until the 
end of my days. 

\““‘T am thinking this morning of the men in the mills 
and factories; I am thinking of the women who, for a 
paltry wage, are compelled to work out their lives; of 
the little children who, in this system, are robbed of 
their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are 
seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon, and forced 
into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the machines 
while they themselves are being starved body and soul. 
ican see them dwarfed, diseased, stunted, their little 
lives broken, and their hopes blasted, because in this 


50 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


high noon of cur twentieth century civilization money 
is still so much more important than human life. Gold 
is god and rules in the affairs of men.% 

‘‘The little girls, and there are a million of them 
in this country—this“the most favored land beneath the © 
bending skies, a land in which we have vast areas of 
rich and fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible 
abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on 
earth, millions of eager workers ready to apply their 
labor to that machinery to produce an abundance for 
every man, woman and child—and if there are stilk 
many millions of our people who are the victims of 
poverty, whose life is a ceaseless struggle all the way 
from youth to age, until at last death comes to their 
rescue and stills the aching heart, and lulls the victim 
to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty, 
it can’t be charged to nature; it is due entirely to an 
outgrown social system that ought to be abolished not 
only in the interest of the working class, but in a 
higher interest of all humanity.” 

‘““When I think of these little children—the girls 
that are in the textile mills of all description in the 
East, in the cotton factories of the South—when I think 
of them at work in a vitiated atmosphere, when I think 
of them at work when they ought to be at play or at 
school, when I think that when they do grow up, if 
they live long enough to approach the marriage state, 
they are unfit for it. Their nerves are worn out, their 
tissue is exhausted, their vitality is spent. They have 
been fed to industry. Their lives have been coined into 
gold. Their offspring are born tired. That is why 
there are so many failures in our modern life. 

‘‘Your Honor, the five per cent of the people that I 
have made reference to constitute that element that 
absolutely rules our country. They privately own all 
our public necessities. They wear no crowns; they 
wield no scepters; they sit upon no thrones; and yet 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 51 


they are our economic masters and our political rulers. 
They control this government and all of its institutions. 
They control the courts. 

“‘And, Your Honor, if you will permit me, I wish to 
make just one correction. It was stated here that I had 
eharged that all federal judges were crooks. The charge 
is absolutely untrue. I did say that all federal judges 
are appointed through the influence and power of the 
eapitalist class and not the working class. If that 
statement is not true, I am more than willing to re- 
tract it. 

“The five per cent of our people who own and 
control all the sources of wealth, all of the nation’s in- 
dustries, all of the means of our common life, it is they 
who declare war; it is they who make peace; it is they 
who control our destiny. And so long as this is true, 
we can make no just claim to being a democratic gov- 
ernment—a self-governing people. 

\“‘T believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, 
that this nation ought to own and control its industries. 
I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are 
jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned— 
that industry, the basis of life, instead of being the pri- 
vate property of the few and operated for their enrich- 
ment, ought to be the common property of all, demo- 
eratically administered in the interest of all.” 

*‘John D. Rockefeller has to-day an income of sixty 
million dollars a year, five million dollars a month, two 
hundred thousand dollars a day. He does not produce 
a penny of it. I make no attack upon Mr. Rockefeller 
personally. I do not in the least dislike him. If he 
were in need and it were in my power to serve him, I 
should serve him as gladly as I would any other human 
being. I have no quarrel with Mr. Rockefeller person- 
ally, nor with any other capitalist. I am simply oppos- / 
ing a social order in which it is possible for one man 
who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a 


52) DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while mil- 
lions of men and women who work all of the days of 
their lives secure barely enough for an existence. 

‘“This order of things cannot always endure. I have 
registered my protest against it. I recognize the feeble- 
ness of my effort, but, fortunately, I am not alone. 
There are multiplied thousands of others who, tike my- 
self, have come to realize that before we may truly 
enjoy the blessings of civilized life, we must reorganize 
society upon a mutual and cooperative basis; and to this 
end we have organized a great economic and political 
movement that is spread over the face of all the earth. 

““There are to-day upwards of sixty million Socialists, 
loyal, devoted, adherents to this cause, regardless of 
nationality, race, creed, color or sex. They are all mak- 
ing common cause, They are all spreading the propa- 
ganda of the new social order. They are waiting, 
watching and working through all the weary hours of 
the day and night. They are still in the minority. 
They have learned how to be patient and abide their 
time. They feel—they know, indeed,—that the time is 
coming, in spite of all opposition, all persecution, when 
this emancipating gospel will spread among all the 
peoples, and when this minority will become the trium- 
phant majority, and sweeping into power, inaugurate the 
greatest change in history. 

‘‘In that day we will have the universal common- 
wealth—not the destruction of the nation, but, on the 
contrary, the harmonious cooperation of every nation 
with every other nation on earth. Im that day war 
will curse this earth no more. 

‘“T have been accused, Your Honor, of being an enemy 
of the soldier. I hope I am laying no flattering unction 
to my soul when I say that I don’t believe the soldier 
has a more sympathetic friend than I am. If I had 
my way there would be no soldiers. But I realize the 
sacrifices they are making, Your Honor. I ean think 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 53 


of them. I can feel for them. I can sympathize with 
them. That is one of the reasons why I have been 
doing what little has been in my power to bring about 
a condition of affairs in this country worthy of the 
sacrifices they have made and that they are now making 
in its behalf. 

“‘Your Honor, in a local paper yesterday there was 
some editorial exultation about my prospective ‘im- 
prisonment. I do not resent it in the least. I can under- 
stand it perfectly. In the same paper there appears 
an editorial this morning that has in it a hint of the 
wrong to which I have been trying to call attention.’’ 

Reading: ‘‘ ‘A senator of the United States receives 
a salary of $7500—$45,000 for the six years for which 
he is elected. One of the candidates for senator from 
a state adjoining Ohio is reported to have spent through 
his committee $150,000 to secure the nomination. For 
advertising he spent $35,000; for printing $30,000; for 
traveling expenses $10,000 and the rest in ways known 
to political managers. 

“““The theory is that public office is as open to a 

poor man as to a rich man. One may easily imagine, 
however, how slight a chance one of ordinary resources _ 
would have in a contest against this man who was will- 
ing to spend more than three times his six years’ salary 
merely to secure a nomination. Were these conditions 
to hold in every state, the senate would soon become 
again what it was once held to be—a rich men’s club. 
_ “**Campaign expenditures have been the subject of 
much restrictive legislation in recent years, but it has 
not always reached the mark. The authors of primary 
reform have accomplished some of the things they set ° 
out to do, but they have not yet taken the bank roll 
out of politics.’ 

“They never. will teke it out of politics, they never 
can take it out of politics in this system. 

“Your Honor, I wish to make acknowledgment of 


54 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


my thanks to the counsel for the defense. They have 
not only defended me with exceptional legal ability, but 
with a personal attachment and devotion of which I 
am deeply sensible, and which I can never forget. 

‘*Your Honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for no im- 
munity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I 
never more clearly comprehended than now the great 
struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand 
and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I ean 
see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people 
are awakening. In due course of time they will come 
into their own. 

‘‘When the mariner, sailing over tropie seas, looks 
for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes 
toward the Southern Cross, burning luridly above the 
tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the 
Southern Cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds 
change their places, and with starry finger-points the 
Almighty marks the passage of Time upon the dial of 
the universe; and though no bell may beat the glad 
tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing 
—that relief and rest are close at hand. 

““Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for 
the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy 
cometh with the morning. 


‘* «He is true to God who is true to man, 
Wherever wrong is done 
To the humblest and the weakest 
"Neath the all-beholding sun, 
That wrong is also done to us, 
And they are slaves most base 
Whose love of right is for themselves 
And not for all the race.’ 


“‘Your Honor, I thank you, and I thank all of this 
court for their courtesy, for their kindness, which I shall 
remember always. ‘ 
- “T am prepared to receive your sentence,’’ 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 55 


The Court overruled the motion of Debs’s counsel for 

a new trial on the ground of a faulty indictment and 
immaterial and improper evidence introduced by the 
prosecution. Judge Westenhaver made a lengthy state- 
ment from the bench, reviewing the evidence. He said 
that men of the power and influence of Debs were re- 
sponsible in a large measure for ‘‘other ignorant and 
unthinking foreigners’’ getting into similar difficulty. 
The Court held he yielded to none in his sympathy and 
tenderness toward the poor and the struggling, and ex- 
pressed his amazement at ‘‘the remarkable self-delusion 
and self-deception of Mr. Debs who assumes that he is 
serving humanity and the downtrodden.”’ 

*‘T am a conserver of the peace and a defender of 
the Constitution of the United States,’’ avowed the 
Court, looking squarely into the face of Debs whose eyes 
met squarely those of his judge. The Court admitted 
his admiration of Debs’s sincerity and courage, and 
added that the principles which Debs had espoused be- 
fore the jury and the Court were ‘‘anarchy pure and 
simple,’’ and not in conformity with any works on 
Socialism that he had read. The Court denounced as 
enemies those persons “‘within our borders who would 

strike the sword from the hand of this nation while she 
is engaged in defending herself against a foreign and 
brutal power.’’ 

The Court then sentenced Debs to serve ten years in 
the West Virginia State Penitentiary at Moundsville 
on each of the three counts upon which he was found 
guilty, the sentence to run concurrently. Debs’s bail 
of $10,000 was continued, and he was released, but only 
on condition that he would remain at his home in Terre 
Haute or within the jurisdiction of the Court pending 
the disposition of his appeal to the Supreme Court of 
the United States. The Socialist Party had decided 
that Debs should make a nation-wide speaking tour in 
behalf of other political and industrial prisoners con- 


56 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


victed under the same statute, but the ruling of the 
Court limited his activities in this direction to the 
northern judicial district of Ohio and his home town. 
Debs held scores of meetings in the cities and towns 
embraced by this area while his appeal was being pre- 
pared. He did not miss a single opportunity to ad- 
dress his followers, and each address was substantially 
a reiteration of the principles enunciated in his Canton 
and jury speeches. 

On March 10th, 1919, the Supreme Court of the 
United States upheld the conviction and sentence of 
Debs.* 

Debs was at home when the news reached him that 
his appeal had been denied. He gave the following 
broadside to the press associations: 

“‘The decision is perfectly consistent with the char- 
acter of the Supreme Court as a ruling class tribunal. 
It could not have been otherwise. So far as I am per- 
sonally concerned, the decision is of small consequence. 
But there is an issue at stake of vital interest to the 
American people. It involves the fundamental right 
of free speech. With this, our boasted freedom is a de- 
lusion and a farce. : 

‘‘The Supreme Court has dodged the issue. It has 
held the Espionage Law valid without affirming its 
constitutionality. The real issue before the court was 
the constitutionality of the act. This issue the Supreme 


Court did not dare to decide. What the Supreme Court — 
did decide is that the Constitution is another “scrap of — 


- paper.’ 


“‘Great issues are not decided by courts, but by the - 
people. I have no concern in what the coterie of be-— 
gowned corporation lawyers in Washington may decide — 
in my case. The court of final resort is the people, and ~ 


that court will be heard from in due time. 


* Full text of decision of Supreme Court in the Debs case may 
‘be found in the Appendix. 


| 
¥ 


TRIAL, CONVICTION AND APPEAL 57 


‘<The decision just rendered places the United States 
where old Russia under the Czar left off. It is good 
for, at least, a million Bolshevist recruits in this country. 

“TI stand by every word of the Canton speech. The 
Supreme Court to the contrary, notwithstanding, the 
Espionage Law is perfectly infamous, and a disgrace, as 
well, to the capitalist despotism at whose behest it was 
nacted. 

‘Sixty years ago the Supreme Court affirmed the 
validity of the Fugitive Slave law to save chattel 
lavery. Five years later that infamous institution was 
swept from the land in a torrent of blood. I despise 
he Espionage Law with every drop of blood in my 
yeins, and I defy the Supreme Court and all its powers 
yf capitalism to do their worst. 

‘All hail to the workers of America and the world! 

“‘The day of emancipation is dawning.’’ 


CHAPTER III 
THE JOURNEY TO PRISON— 


T was about eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, 
April 12th, 1919, when the telephone rang in Debs’s 
home. District Attorney Wertz, of Cleveland, was at 
the other end of the wire. Debs answered. The dis- 
trict attorney informed Debs that he should make ready 
at once to come to Cleveland and surrender himself to 
the government authorities who would take him to the — 
Moundsville penitentiary. Debs was told that no 
guards would be sent to Terre Haute to accompany 
him on the journey to Cleveland. 

‘‘Thank you, Mr. Wertz, I’ll be right along,’’ said 
Debs as he hung up the receiver. 

From that moment until 9.30 o’clock in the evening, 
Debs was busying himself at home packing for the jour- 
ney to prison. Mrs. Debs helped him with this and that, 
reminding him to write that little note before he went 
away, and ‘‘Don’t you think you should attend to this?’”’ 
All day long telegrams and special delivery letters 
poured into his home at 451 North Highth street. They 
were from his friends in all corners of the continent. 

I had arrived in Terre Haute a little before 2 o’clock. 
There were crowds at the station and I felt sure that 
Debs had gone away. I was aware that his moments of 
freedom were few. I hailed a taxi-cab. ‘‘Take me to 
Debs’s home,’’ I urged. A moment later it occurred to 
me that, possibly, the driver did not know where Debs 
lived. I told him. The driver smiled. ‘‘TI wish I had 
a dollar for every man I’ve driven to Debs’s home. 
Why, more people in Terry Hut know where ‘Gene 

58 | 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 59 


Debs lives than they know the location of City Hall.’’ 
In a few moments we were at the Debs home. A tall, 
matronly woman, with gentle and kindly face, opened 
the door. There was a slight hesitancy in her manner. 
It instantly oceurred to me that persons coming to that 
home on this day were no less than intruders, inter- 
lopers. Yes, Debs was at home, she said, but very busy. 
“‘He is upstairs now writing letters,’’ she said. A few 
moments after I had stepped into the parlor I heard 
’Gene’s footsteps on the stairs. His eye was clear, and 
his voice was firm, sweet and resonant. His shoulders 
were slightly more stooped, possibly due to his recent 
confinement to bed with lumbago. It was a wonderful 
spring day down there in southern Indiana. Every- 
where one sensed the budding and bursting of new life. 
Debs felt it. 

“Well, I am ready to go to prison. I am ready to 
pay the ultimate penalty for speaking what to me was 
the truth. I said in court at Cleveland that I had not 
one word to retract. I have not a word to retract now. 
I would say over again what I said at Canton.’”’ His 
mouth contracted as his lips tightened in determination. 
I asked Debs if he could tell me what his feelings were 
on the eve of his going to prison. He smiled, and I 
knew at once that I had asked a foolish question, for 
his answer to it was flashed in his confident, winning 
manner. 

““What about a pardon?’’ he repeated my question. 
**T don’t know anything about one. I have asked for 
none, nor shall I. I stand on the threshold of going to 
prison with malice toward none, and with perfect faith 
in the rectitude of my course and an absolute confidence 
in the justice and ultimate triumph of the cause to 
which I have gladly given my services. To ask a par- 
don would be to confess guilt.’” Debs’s eyes were flash- 
ing fire, and a steely glint stole into them. Debs said he 
thought that the reactionary element in the political and 


60 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS © 


industrial spheres of the country feared the spread of 
Bolshevism over the United States, and that if they 
could but cut out its tongue, meaning the elimination of 
himself, they would have killed it. At that time he 
thought it not unlikely that President Wilson might 
intervene, though he did not expect or wish it. 
‘“Wilson has a vision,’’ Debs said. ‘‘There is some 


light on his social horizon, however much it may be 


obscured by the clouds that hover around him. He 
sees, or Seems to see, at some moments, that the liberties 


of the people cannot be crushed by repressive measures, : 


but there are tremendous forces behind the President, or 
before him, I don’t know which, that won’t let him be 
free.’’ 

He mentioned the large and enthusiastic meetings he 
had been holding in the northern judicial district of 
Ohio, and while speaking of them he became oblivious of 
the gray journey he was soon to take to prison. 

Only a few persons in Terre Haute knew that Debs 
was leaving them that night. A few of his townsmen 
were bent upon holding a huge demonstration in his 
honor. Debs requested them to eall it off. ‘“‘I just 
want to slip out quietly now. When I come back— 
that will be the time.’’ 

A little way down the street from his two-story frame 
dwelling two children were playing with a kitten. I 
had just left Debs’s home, but as an experiment I wanted 
to know what his little neighbors thought of him. I 
asked one of them where Debs lived. 

‘‘Right in that second house from the corner, two 
doors above Sycamore street. You can’t miss him; he’s 
the man with the kind face.’’ Then the little girl 
chirped up: ‘‘Yes, the other day he patted me on my 
head and told me not to hurt my kitten, and I have 
not squeezed it since.’’ This led me to talk to whom- 
ever I chanced to meet about ’Gene Debs for the re- 
mainder of the afternoon. 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 61 


Down on the railroad tracks near the station was a 
watehman’s shanty. Inside was the watchman, an old 
man, looking to be about sixty years. His face was 
red and weatherbeaten. His eyes were red, too, from 
the wind and cinders. He was reaching his arm 
through the window to dip a cup into a pail of water 
that was placed on an upturned box. 

““Well, I guess I oughta know where ’Gene lives,’’ 
he said, answering my inquiry. He gave me the accu- 
rate direction. 

“You know they’re taking him away to prison to- 
night?’’ I ventured. 

**Yes, I know it.’’ A fierce glint tempered with sad- 
ness stole into the old railroader’s eyes. 

*‘T suppose you are going up to say ‘Good-by’ to 
him before he goes away?’’ 

‘*Oh, ’Gene never goes out of Terry Hut but what he 
comes by this sian and yells in ‘So long, Bob, I’ll 
see you soon again.” He’ll be comin’ ’long here to-night 
before he goes away. I’ll bet he won’t be gone as long 
as some of those times when he made the run for Presi- 
dent.’’ That night, just before train time, ’Gene, his 
brother Theodore, and I were walking from his home 
to the station. 

“Just a minute, boys,’’ said "Gene. ‘‘I want to stop 
at that shanty over there and say ‘So long’ to Bob.’’ 

Strolling down Seventh street towards the center of 
the city’s heart an elderly man hove into sight. He 
looked as though he might be a retired wage worker, 
too old now, maybe, to work at whatever had been his 
trade. A butt of a cigar was gripped between his brown 
teeth, and a battered light felt hat dipped over one eye. 
His clothes hung upon his slender frame in a manner 
‘resembling nothing so much as a scarecrow’s. I put 
the same questions to him. With some show of city 
_ pride after the manner of an elder citizen who has a 


62 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


speaking acquaintance with all the local celebrities, my 
friend owned that he knew Debs ‘‘very well.”’ 
“‘T once worked for him,’’ he vouchsafed, swelling up 


just a little. ‘‘Yes, siree, I tinkered ’round his front | 


porch and painted ’er up. So ’Gene is leavin’ Terry 
Hut for prison to-night! Well, I’ll be damned. That’s 
tough, ain’t it?’’ I ventured the suggestion-that some 


day Terre Haute would erect a monument to the mem- 


ory of its foremost citizen. 

““Well, I don’t know. Now, we ain’t much on monu- 
ments here in Terry Hut. We don’t go in for the deco- 
rations. Did you see that Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monu- 
ment down there in the park on your way up? Ain’t 
that a hell of a lookin’ thing? No, siree, we don’t go 
in much for the monuments in Terry Hut. Well, I’ll 
just go ’round and say ‘Good-by’ to ’Gene before he 
goes.’’ The old wage worker slowly ambled off toward 
the Debs home to take his parting farewell. 

Down at the Terre Haute House some leading citizens 
and politicians were standing in groups out on the 
pavement. Several iron rods that supported the awning 
were bent in just about up to a man’s shoulder, and 
several citizens were settled snugly against them. The 
bar was crowded. The next man to me was drinking 
slowly from a glass of beer. He wore striped trousers 
that were frayed at the heels, and a black cutaway coat 
that was green and shiny at the back and elbows. A 
greenish black braid ran around its edges and the cuffs. 
A high piccadilly collar with soiled flaps pinched his 
neck. He had a professional air about him. We struck 
up a conversation about Debs. 

‘‘Well, I should say I do know him—for twenty 
years, sir.”’ 

‘What does Terre Haute think about Debs going to 
prison?’’ I inquired. 

‘“Well, now, speaking for myself,’’ he began, ‘‘I’ve 
known Mr. Debs for many years. I like him person- 


| 
. 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 63 


ally, but he’s got some cranky notions in his head. If 
he didn’t have them fool ideas about saving humanity 
he’d be all right. What’s more, sir, humanity as it is 
ain’t worth anybody goin’ to jail for.’’ He gulped to 
the dregs. 

“‘T’ll tell you, I hope Debs goes to prison, and I hope 
he s-e-r-v-e-S twenty-four hours just to prove to him and 
his followers that the law is bigger’n he is.”’ 

‘“Hverybody in Terre Haute loves Debs,’’ an editor of 
the Terre Haute Tribune told me, ‘‘but many of them 
think he was mighty foolish to make that speech at 
Canton when he did. He had no right to do that. I 
guess the feeling in Terre Haute about Debs is some- 
thing like this: ninety-five per cent of the people don’t 
like his ideas, but they worship the man. They all love 
him. But there is probably not one man or woman in 
that ninety-five per cent but who would gladly go to 
jail for ’Gene if they could.’’ 

Shortly before nine o’clock I went back to the Debs 
home. Lights were shining through the side windows 
of his sitting room, which was simply furnished, like 
any ordinary American home. It was marked by its 
orderliness and comforts, without any pretensions or 
luxuries. Debs was sitting in an ample rocking chair 
smoking a cigar. He might just have returned from 
a campaign trip. There was good nature all around. 
’Gene seemed to be the one least affected by the ordeal 
through which he must pass in the days and months to 
come. Around him were his wife, Theodore and his 
wife and daughter, Mrs. Debs’s aged mother, and her 
brother, Arthur Baur, a local druggist. 

In a vase on a table was a huge bunch of American 
Beauty roses, the gift of Mrs. Flynn, an old washer- 
woman, and a neighbor. ‘‘She is a Roman Catholic,”’ 
Debs said, ‘‘and every morning for many years she 
has prayed for me.’’ Debs blew a ring of blue smoke 
and smiled sadly, The rear of the house resembled a 


64 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


miniature horticultural hall filled with myriad flowers 
that had been brought to the house all that day and 
evening, the gifts of Debs’s neighbors, many of whom 
did not share his social ideas, but who were deeply fond 
of and admired the man. Debs spoke of a rich over- 
all manufacturer who lived a few doors from him. ‘‘Of 
course he doesn’t like the hard things I say about capi- 
talism, but he is a splendid neighbor. He was here 
to-day to say farewell.’’ 

‘“Well, Eugene, we had better start,’’ put in Mrs. 
Debs, rising. 

““Yes,’’ replied Debs. ‘‘We don’t want to miss the 
train.’’ 

Theodore, who has been closer than a brother to Gene, 
got Debs’s coat from the rack. Mrs, Debs’s mother was 
weeping softly. ’Gene went over to her side and patted 
her cheek. ‘‘It is all right, mother,’’ he said with in- 
finite tenderness, ‘‘it will come out all right in the end.”’ 

In spite of the fact that on that very afternoon a 
delegation representing the Terre Haute branch of So- 
cialists and the Terre Haute Central Labor Union ealled 
on him to obtain his permission to hold a demonstration 
that night,—which Debs refused,—there were at the 
Big Four Railroad station more than 200 of the old 
guard, the faithful comrades who would not let their 
’Gene go away without a farewell and a last shake of 
his hand. Debs strolled right into the crowd. In- 
stantly he was surrounded. Those who could not edge 
their way right up to him reached over the heads of the | 
others and tugged at his coat sleeves. They repre- 
sented, typically so, the American labor movement. 
They were not all Socialists. But they were all work- 
ing men and women. Debs went from one to the other 
avowing his love for them all, and pledging anew to 
them his devotion to their common cause. One big miner 
thrust his huge form through the crowd. His gnarled 
hand clasped Debs’s arm. Tears flowed freely from his 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 65 


eyes as he said: ‘‘We’re with you, ’Gene,—by God, we’re 
with you to the last man.”’ 

“*T know it,’’ said Debs, patting his cheek and kiss- 
ing his brow. ‘‘Until the last drop we’ll stand together, 
all of us. Only by standing together can we hope for 
victory. You boys take care of the outside and I’ll 
take care of the inside.’’ A volley of cheers from two 
hundred strong throats rent the air. Debs passed into 
the station and the crowd followed. Every few mo- 
ments some one would start ‘‘three cheers,’’ and the 
throng would shout its response. Merchants competing 
with each other for trade and profits could not possibly 
be more competitive than were these men, vieing with 
each other just to touch the garments of ’Gene Debs. 
Out on the platform they surged as the train pulled 
into the station. As Debs mounted the steps of his car 
a Pullman porter doffed his cap. Debs had been a pas- 
senger in his car many times before, on happier occa- 
sions. Instantly Debs removed his own hat. Then the 
erowd uncovered, even the women removing their hats. 
In this manner they stood for some minutes. In front 
of the crowd a soldier was standing. On one sleeve 
were two gold stripes, indicating a year’s service in 
France, and on the other sleeve one gold stripe, indicat- 
ing a wound received in battle. He stood first on one 
foot, then on the other. When he could restrain him- 
self no longer he climbed up the steps, grasped Debs 
by the hand and shouted: 

“‘Mr. Debs, I went through hell over there for them, 
and now I’m ready to go through hell over here for 
you.’’ The crowd let out a whoop. ‘‘And there are a 
million more like me,’’ shouted the soldier back to the 
erowd. As the train slowly puffed its way out of the 
shed Debs threw a kiss to his wife, and his friends. A 
little way down the platform a young woman was walk- 
ing with a man. She pulled a red flower from her 


66 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


bosom and threw it at Debs who was still standing on 
the platform. 

Arthur Baur and myself, who were to accompany 
Debs to prison, went with him to the club ear while ~ 
the porter made up his berth. Earlier that day Debs had ~ 
said : | 

“‘During my incarceration my comrades willbe true 
and my enemies will be satisfied, and therefore, as far 
as I am concerned, all will be well with the world.’’ 

I asked him how Mrs. Debs was bearing up under 
the strain. 

‘*She has stood shoulder to shoulder with me through 
every storm that has beat upon us, and she is standing 
firm now.’’ Debs said that it was his wife’s regret that 
she could not go with him to prison. “‘But she cannot 
do that, so she will remain here to keep the home fires 
burning.’’ ; 

All about the Debs home there was every outward 
indication that "Gene would remain undisturbed for the 
rest of his life. A man was working in the little garden 
in back of the home, laying out new flower beds for 
Mrs. Debs and pruning the trees on the strip of lawn 
in front of their house. Quietly standing by his side 
throughout all of his trials and tribulations, throughout 
all of the homage and glory that have been lavished 
upon her husband, Mrs. Debs declined to give her own 
opinion concerning the plight in which Debs found him- 
self. It has been her life rule to permit Debs to speak 
for himself on every matter of public import. On that 
day her hair seemed just a wee bit whiter; her cheeks 
may have lost a little of their accustomed rosiness; she 
might even have been somewhat thinner; but she was 
quite as erect, and carried her head in the same un- 
afraid manner as of old, resembling nothing so much as 
a great tree in some forest over which has swept many a 
strong wind, yet which remains steadfast, braced to 
weather any storm that may arise again. 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 67 


Debs smoked two or three cigars as we sat in the 
elub car. He was lively, mostly in reminiscent mood, 
and in excellent spirits. During the conversation I 
suggested to him that his imprisonment would tend to 
accelerate whatever boom may otherwise have been 
started for him for President. He waved it aside, 
saying, ‘‘When the presidential year comes around I’ll 
be the best swabber of floors, or the best prison clerk, 
in Moundsville.’’ 

This led him to speak of leaders. 

“‘Very often a leader is, in fact, a misleader. It is 
the workers, the men and women who do all the hard 
work in every line of trade and profession—in building 
up their own Socialist branches and their unions, to 
whom all the credit, homage, honor and glory is due. 
They are the salt of the earth, the gold in the rain- 
bow,—these simple people, these Jimmie and Jane Hig- 
ginses who work early and late for the cause, who ar- 
range the meetings, who wash the dishes after the festive 
dinners—how much we owe to the workers. They ex- 
pect no pay and they receive no honors. If you were 
to approach them with your thanks for the good they 
have done, they would blush to the roots of their hair. 
I have had a regret all of my days that I shall not live 
long enough to repay these dear comrades of mine for 
the wonderful love and honors they have showered upon 
me with their seamed and scarred hands, worn and 
shriveled from the toil that has been their lot. Their 
joy is to serve, yet none serve them. All that I am in 
this world is what my comrades have made me. They 
are the fruit of the choicest tree that ever grew. 

Across from us, sitting in the brightly lighted car, 
sat several men, smoking and drinking light beverages. 
They were going somewhere for business or pleasure. 
Debs was going to prison. They knew he sat within a 
few feet of them. A little while before they had come 
out on the platform at Terre Haute to see what all the 


68 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


racket was about. People asleep in their berths had 
come out with wraps about their pajamas and night- 
gowns. One tall fellow, clad in pajamas, shook Debs’s 
hand and said: ‘‘Mr. Debs, I am going to Canton. 
Have you ever been there ?’’ 

‘‘Oh, yes,’’ replied Debs, appreciating the humor, ‘‘I 
once made a speech there which the government didn’t 
like.’’ 

‘‘Suppose,’’ I asked him during the evening, ‘‘sup- 
pose President Wilson should cable a pardon for you 
without any strings attached to it, an unconditional 
pardon, what would you do? What would be your atti- 
tude?’’ At that time President Wilson was in Paris 
helping to arrange the terms of peace for the world 
which for the five preceding years had been swept by 
war. Debs drew on his cigar. As the blue smoke curled 
from his lips his answer was ready: 

‘*T should refuse to accept it, unless the same pardon 
were extended to every man and woman in prison under 
the Espionage Law. They must let them all out— 
I.W.W. and all—or I won’t come out. I don’t want 
any special dispensation of justice in my ease. It is 
perfectly clear. I always have taken that position and I 
cannot too strongly reassert it now.”’ 

All during the trip to Cleveland Debs talked gayly 
enough. He told stories of how back in 1896 he had 
campaigned for William Jennings Bryan for President. 
Even during that campaign, Debs said, he was getting 
along fast toward Socialism. ‘‘Bryan’s lieutenants 
wanted me to espouse the Sixteen-to-one, Free Silver 
panacea, but I was talking straight Industrial Unionism, 
and those were the days, too, when to talk for Indus- 
trial Unionism, or the One Big Union, was to espouse 
‘anarchy,’ for the American Federation of Labor was 
at that time growing fast toward its full strength as a 
craft union movement, and Bryan’s managers antici- 
pated a number of votes from that element.’’ Debs’s 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 69 


erowds in those early days ran neck and neck in num- 
bers with those of Bryan himself, and this fact would 
augur well for his power as a speaker nearly a quarter 
of a century ago. 

‘“Many years ago,’’ he went on, ‘‘during the great 
Cripple Creek strike in Colorado I was invited to go out 
there and help organize the miners, who were struggling 
to obtain the eight-hour day. In those days the ‘ Hight- ’ 
Hour Day’ movement was labor heresy. I would not 
again go into a situation such as I found out there for 
anything in the world—not for anything except Social- 

““The towns were flooded with armed thugs, who were 
ordered to shoot all labor agitators on sight. The busi- 
ness men and mine owners were determined they would 
not allow a labor union in that district. I went out 
there. At the station I was met by a large group of 
armed thugs, the sheriff and his deputies. They made 
up their minds that I should not make a speech that 
night.’” Debs said he told the leader of the gang that, 
“‘This will either be the beginning of organized labor 
- in Colorado or the end of me.”’ 

“They held conference on the curb while I went to 
a hotel. That night I made my speech and held a most 
successful meeting. The next morning I was standing 
on the curb near my hotel, talking with several of the 
union men. There were only a few who had dared to 
be seen with me. One of the men drew my attention 
to a big, hulking fellow not ten feet away. He was the 
biggest man I ever saw in two boots. He had a deadly 
eye. I could see the butts of two guns protruding from 
his hip pockets. 

** *See that fellow over there, Mr. Debs,’ one of my 
friends said to me. ‘Well, he is a sure shot. He was 
never known to miss the man he went after. Last night 
that man stood not ten feet away from your stand all 
the while you were talking. You have not left his sight 


70 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


since then. He has been following you every step, and 
he’ll be the last man to see you out of town.’ 

““ “Ts that so?’ I said to my friend. I walked over 
to the strong man on the curb and extended my hand 
to him. 

“* “My friends have been telling me that you were 
at my meeting last night, that you have been-watching 
my movements ever since, and that you are the sure 
shot of Colorado. I am glad to meet you.’ 

‘* “Yes, Mr. Debs, I’ve been watching you pretty care- 
fully. I knew that they were out to get you in this 
yere burg. I hail from Vincennes, Indiana, and I know 
you’re on the level with the workingmen. I jest made 
up my mind that any who laid his dirty hands 
on you would be carted out of this yere region a corpse.’ 

‘‘The fellow blushed to the roots of his hair like a 
girl when I thanked him for the personal service he had 
rendered to me. I have found on so many occasions 
that it is almost impossible to declare accurately who 
are our friends and who are our enemies.’’ 

At five o’clock next morning Debs was up and dressed. 
He said he had slept only about an hour, but had been 
resting with his thoughts. While the train was creeping 
slowly into the Cleveland yards Debs asked me to take 
his statement ‘‘for my comrades throughout the United 
States.”’ I had no paper at hand, so I fished a book 
from my grip, and was ready to write his statement in 
the back of it. This is the statement: 

‘*As I am about to enter the prison doors, I wish to 
send to the Socialists of America who have so loyally 
stood by me since my first arrest this little message of 
love and cheer. These are pregnant days and promising 
ones. 1 

‘“We are all on the threshold of tremendous changes. 
The workers of the world are awakening and bestirring 
themselves as never before, All the forces that are 
playing upon the modern world are making for the 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 71 


overthrow of despotism in all its forms, and for the 
emancipation of the masses of mankind. pire 

“‘T shall be in prison in the days to come, but my 
revolutionary spirit will be abroad and I shall not be 
inactive. Let us all in this supreme hour measure up 
to our full stature and work together as one for the great 
cause that means emancipation for us all. 

“‘Love to all my comrades and all hail to the revolu- 
tion.”’ 

When the Cleveland newspapers announced, Saturday 
evening, that Debs would leave Terre Haute that night 
for Cleveland, the Socialists hastily prepared for a mass 
meeting at which Debs was to speak. Dodgers printed 
in scarlet ink were scattered through the streets of the 
city. It was to be a meeting to protest against the im- 
prisonment of Debs and the other political and indus- 
trial prisoners. The meeting did not take place because 
Debs was spirited out of Cleveland three hours after he 
arrived. At the depot he was met by Mrs. Marguerite 
Prevy, who had driven up from Akron with her sister, 
Mrs. May Deibel, and her husband, John. They were 
staunch friends of Debs. The breakfast over, Debs went 
to the Gillsy House. He was writing a note to his folks 
at home, telling of his safe arrival, when two United 
States deputy marshals came to his room and ordered 
him to come with them to the Marshal’s office in the 
Federal building. With Debs at that moment were Mrs. 
Prevy, J. Louis Engdahl and Alfred Wagenknecht, the 
last two coming from Chicago as representatives of the 
National Socialist Party, and who would accompany 
the Debs party to Moundsville. 

After a few minutes’ stay at the Federal building, 
where Marshal Charles W. Lapp prepared the necessary 
documents for delivering Debs to prison, the prisoner, 
with Marshal Lapp and a deputy, appeared at a side 
exit, and entered an automobile. Those of us who were 
to accompany him got into another automobile. The 


72 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Debs car tore through the city streets. It turned cor- 
ners sharply, the driver ignoring all traffic regulations. 
Our car kept up the whole distance, recklessly brushing 
passing vehicles and moving trolley cars. Traffic police- 
men waved their arms in frantic yet futile attempt to 
halt the dual speeders. For an hour this mad race con- 


tinued, until finally the Debs car drew up—before a 


suburban railroad station where the Marshal purchased 
three tickets for Youngstown. His pursuers did like- 


wise. Debs was taken to a private compartment of the ~ 


train and we were allowed to sit with him. The Marshal 
then told us that we were to make the trip to Mounds- 
ville from Youngstown by trolley. This was done to 
forestall any demonstrations for Debs by his followers 
along the route. The trip was uneventful. Debs told 
stories of his life, of the American Railway Union’s 


strike back in 1894, and similar incidents of his career.: 


Every now and then he would turn to Marshal Lapp, 
who wanted to be congenial and affable, slap him on 
the knee and ask him how he felt. Just before we 
reached Youngstown Debs remarked to the Marshal that 
it might take some while to get to Moundsville by trolley. 

‘“Well, we can make an all-day job of it,’’ smiled 
Lapp. 

‘‘Oh, yes,’’ rejomed Debs, with perfect good hu- 
mor, ‘‘we have ten years in which to get there.’’ Debs 
said he never felt in better spirits in all his life, and 
added, ‘‘This is the beginning of a great event for us 


all.’? At Youngstown, a little boy of twelve years, the © 


son of a Socialist, espied Debs walking through the 
streets with his guards on the way to the interurban 
station. The little fellow threw himself in ’Gene’s 
arms. After a half-hour wait we were aboard a trolley 
for Leetonia; from there to Hast Liverpool; to Steu- 
benville; to Wellsburg, West Virginia; to Wheeling, 
where Debs was allowed thirty minutes for supper. He 


had not eaten since early morning in Cleveland. We, 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 73 


reached Wheeling by eight o’clock. Debs was kept 
jumping off and on trolley cars all day Sunday. He 
was an old man, 64 years old, recently confined to bed 
with illness. There was not one word of complaint 
from him, yet he was visibly exhausted. When one of 
his party complained about his being ‘‘kidnaped’’ in 
this fashion, Debs only smiled and said, ‘‘It’s ail right; 
let them have their inning now; we’ll have ours some 
day.’’ 

Debs’s trolley slid across trestles, jolted and jostled 
along the foothills of the Alleghenies, with every now and 
then happy couples getting on and off the various ears 
on which we traveled. They were making merry on a 
Palm Sunday frolic. Once, I was reminded of what a 
barber in Terre Haute had remarked in speaking casu- 
ally to a customer about Debs’s impending imprison- 
ment. ‘‘Well, it’s coming along to Easter time, and 
we're getting ready for another crucifixion.’’ 

Late in the afternoon Debs was so weary he could 
hold up his head no longer. Presently it bent slowly 
toward his breast, and in this posture he slept as the 
ear rocked his head from side to side. Life’s grayest 
shadows held no sadder picture than this. We who 
accompanied Debs to prison shall never forget his sad 
and sleeping figure, with head bent on bosom, his long 
frame cramped in a trolley car seat, with two guards 
ever vigilant, moving along the Ohio Valley, with the 
river flowing at our right, with great earth swells ris- 
ing and falling on either side like huge brown and 
green waves. 

Shortly before ten o’clock we arrived at Moundsville. 
The great turrets of the prison arose before us like 
ancient towers. As we passed along the wall, sickly 
yellow lights shone through the grated windows like a 
sieve held over a number of candles. Debs was still 
carrying his heavy grip which he would let none of his 
party carry for him. He was walking slowly beside 


74 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Marshal Lapp, and he was talking softly to his guard. 
I heard him say this: 

‘‘Marshal, you have treated me like a gentleman all 
the way down here. I should not wish you'ever to feel 
that you have done me the slightest injury or harm by 
bringing me here. I understand perfectly why I am 
going to prison, and I am glad to come here for the 
reason that I am coming here. So set your conscience 
at perfect ease so far as I am concerned.’’ Debs’s long 
arm slowly stretched across the broad shoulders of his 
guard and in this fashion he entered the prison—with 
poise and composure. 

Once inside the prison, Debs was met_by the warden, 
Joseph Z. Terrell. In his characteristic half-stooping 
manner, Debs extended his hand to the warden. In a 
moment the formalities were over and Debs stepped 
into an automatic turn-table inclosed in a double barred 
grating. At the first meeting, the warden spoke kindly 
to his new charge. Debs was taken to a receiving cell, 
No. 51, in the south wing of the prison. He had em- 
braced each of us just before he stepped into the turn- 
table. There was a moment’s turning of his head, and 
his face was sadly radiant in the mellow glow of an 
incandescent hanging in the hall. The warden assured 
us that Debs would be well taken care of in the prison. 

‘‘He will not be on exhibition for the curiosity seek- 
ers, and I shall respect his wishes, so far as the rules 
will allow, as I would those of a man of similar character 
and intelligence,’’ said Terrell. From the first it was 
apparent that Debs was in good and kind hands as far 
aS a prison is concerned. Debs was to be allowed to 
write as many letters as he pleased, subject, of course, 
to prison censorship, whereas the rules permitted only 
one each week. He would be assigned AP light and easy 
clerical duty in the hospital, 

Moreover, the warden would allow Debs to receive 
any number of Socialist newspapers and publications, 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 75 


the only restriction being that he would destroy them 
when he had read them. This provision was made with 
a view to keeping the other prisoners ‘‘from being con- 
taminated by Socialist ideas.’? The warden would also 
allow Debs to receive, reasonably, unrestricted visiis 
from members of his family and personal friends. Be- 
fore we left that night the warden permitted us to go 
to Debs’s cell and bid him good-night. He had removed 
his coat and vest, collar and tie. He was preparing 
for bed. We did not linger before his barred door. 
With one hand gripping the steel rods of his cage, he 
extended the other through the grating and bid us each 
good-by. His cell was jet black within. In the night 
it was impossible for the eye to discern its length or 
width. 

“Tt is all right, boys,’’ said Debs; ‘‘I am going to 
sleep the sleep of the just to-night. I am very tired. 
Don’t worry for me, or about me. We know what we 
are about, and I shall be very comfortable here.’’ His 
face was close up to the bars, looking after us as we 
walked down the narrow iron balcony to the floor. 
Something that we could not name rose in our throats 
to choke us. Something that we could not define or 
see rose up before us to beat us down. The sound of 
our footsteps on the granite floor aroused the sleeping 
' prisoners in that section, and in a moment there was a 
chorus of coughing such as is heard in a hospital for 
consumptives. 

Debs was given number 2253. On the prison records 
his occupation was entered as writer and lecturer. He 
was the only convict among the 896 men there at that 
time who would not be permitted to practice his trade 
or profession. Debs was told that he would be expected 
to obey all the rules of the prison, and Debs promised 
that he would, saying to the warden: ‘‘If I transgress, 
it will not be intentional, and I want you to call my at- 
tention to my error so I will not repeat it.’’ 


76 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS a 


The next afternoon, Monday, April 14, 1919, Debs R 
was assigned to the prison hospital. He had bathed — 
and donned the prison uniform, a light gray with tiny ~ 
checks. The suit bore no external stamp or marking © 


of identification, as is customary, and, in fact, it was 
not unbecoming to him. It was the sort of clothing 
that any one might purchase in a very cheap clothing 
store, the material hard and durable. We found him 


sitting in a low rocker, reading and smoking his pipe. — 


His room was ample, with two windows, and containing 
a single white iron bed. In one corner of his room 
there was a stationary white wash-stand, and in another 
a gas heater was burning brightly to take away the 
chill. Debs was as comfortable as it is possible for a 
man to be in prison. There were no bars at his win- 
dows, which faced the green sward, and the door to his 
room and the one opening out to the prison yard was 
unlocked at all times. He could stroll about the yard 
as often and as long as he chose. 

As we entered his room, Debs put down the book he 
had been reading, disturbing a large gray cat that was 
sleeping at his side. The warden observed his book. 
It was John Reed’s first volume of the Russian Bolsheviki 
Revolution, entitled ‘‘Ten Days That Shook the World.”’ 
Warden Terrell told Debs that he had free access to 
the prison library. ‘‘We have a rule here, Debs,’’ said 
the warden, ‘‘that prisoners must be checked up on the 
books they take from the library, but we will waive that 
rule for you. I know you appreciate the value of good 
books.’’ 

“‘Indeed I do, Mr. Warden,’’ replied Debs with his 
thanks. 

Debs said he had ‘‘slept like a log’’ in his cell, and 
now felt ‘‘as chipper as a young goat on a tin roof.’ 
He laughed good-naturedly as he looked at his prison 
garments, and called them his new spring suit. Debs 
said that he had already ‘‘met some fine men in the 


THE JOURNEY TO PRISON 77 


prison.’’ Hig neighbor in the next cell had confided to 
him that he came originally from McKees Rocks, Penn- 
sylvania, where he had been a miner and a Socialist, 
and had once voted for Debs for President. In the 
yard, during his morning walk, another prisoner had 
come up to him and extended his hand. 

‘‘Well, Mr. Debs, I’ve wanted this honor to meet 
you all my life, but, by God, I’m sorry to meet you in 
here,’’ the convict had said. Debs hastily clasped the 
man’s extended hand and said, ‘‘As well meet here as 
anywhere; the meeting is the thing that counts, not the 
place.”’ All day Monday two Negro prisoners were 
busily engaged scrubbing the floors of the room that 
Debs was to occupy, fumigating it, and, generally, ‘‘ put- 
ting his house in order.’’ One of these men was called 
“Old Nigger Bill.’’ He instantly attached his affections 
to Debs. This darky had twice escaped execution for 
murder, and had since been offered a pardon which he 
had declined with thanks, having no home and no where 
to go. 

At the warden’s invitation we dined with him and 
his family that evening. As we chatted with Debs’s 
keeper and his wife in their private apartments on the 
top floor of the prison, the warden’s little girl, Barbara 
Lee, romped and played on the floor. Debs’s name was 
mentioned frequently, and finally the brown-eyed baby 
looked up into her father’s eyes and asked: ‘‘Daddy, 
who is Debs?’’ The warden gently referred the child’s 
inquiry to me. With a bound she ran over to me and 
climbed upon my lap. I had been playing ‘‘patty-cake, 
patty-cake, baker’s man’’ with her. 

“Debs is a good, kind man,”’’ I told her, ‘‘who loves 
all little boys and girls. And all little boys and girls 
who meet him come to love him, too. If he were up here 
now he would get right down there on the floor and 
play with you.’’ The little girl danced off my lap and 
ran over to the warden, clapping her hands with glee. 


78 . DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


‘Oh, Daddy; Mr. Debs is a kind man who loves 
children, and he plays with them, too; do you think he 
will ever come upstairs and play with me?’’ There 
Was anxious hope in the baby’s voice as she put her 
unanswerable question, None of us knew how to reply 
to the child whose imagination had been eripped by the 
thought of a possible playmate. 

*‘No, I don’t think Mr. Debs will ever have time to 
come up and play with you, Barbara Lee,’’ said her 
father finally, ‘‘but you shall see him some day.’’ The 
little girl ran back to me as though I could somehow 
bring into being the thoughts that raced through her 
mind. I told her that some day, when she had grown to 
be a big girl, she might be glad and proud that she had 
once lived in the same house with Debs. I told her that 
many of his friends would wish they could say they had 
lived under the same roof with him. She looked at me 
wonderingly with big, brown eyes. 

During the meal the warden impressed upon us that 
he had received no instructions from any one to show 
Debs any special favor or consideration. He said he was 
merely treating his prisoner as the latter’s age, charac- 
ter and intelligence demanded. 


CHAPTER IV 
TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 


HERE was no question about Debs being the recip- 
ient of special favors from the warden at Mounds- 
ville. His mail was unrestricted and untampered. He 
never took the full advantage of favors that might easily 
have been extended to him by Terrell. For instance, 
there was a rule in the prison that all lights must be 
out at nine o’clock at night. Debs had a room which 
we could call private. None shared it with him and it 
contained only his personal property. It is unlikely 
that the guards in the prison yards would have raised 
objection had Debs kept his light burning after the 
forbidden hour. Most of them, if not all, were aware 
that Debs was the most celebrated prisoner the prison 
had ever held, and all of them came to respect him, both 
for his personal evidences of kindness within the prison 
walls, and for what they knew him to be in the outside 
world. Debs promptly turned his light off at nine 
o’clock each night. 

It is customary, I am told, according to prison regu- 
ations, for officials to examine carefully all papers and 
magazines and books before they are turned over to 
the prisoner. This is done, not so much to censor the 
written contents, as to guard against the smuggling in 
of drugs, ‘‘sleep powders,’’ flat files or saws to the 
prisoners. Many prisons forbid any printed matter 
coming to the prisoners except that sent direct from 
publishers. Debs, however, received vast quantities of 
printed matter of every radical description, about fifty 
per cent. of which came direct from his friends. Almost 

TE) 


80 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS. 


from the first, his full mail was turned over to him un- 
opened. It reached such volume that he eould easily 
have used a private secretary in prison. Instead, it 
was his custom to assort his mail and dispatch the — 
more general letters to his brother, Theodore, in Terre ~ 
Haute, who would answer each missive. Visitors came 
to see him by the scores. Within two short-months, 
Moundsville became the mecea for the nation’s radicals, 
liberals, and those curiously interested in celebrated and 
public personages. At one time a delegation of fifty 
Socialists marched into the warden’s office from a small 
Ohio town nearby to see Debs. Of course, this vanguard 
was denied its mission, but the leader of the group was 
passed through the prison gates, and was granted a brief 
interview with his chief. Debs at Moundsville soon 
found himself in the position of trying to minimize the 
favors that were being showered upon him from every 
hand. It was his deep concern not to incur the dislike 
or enmity of his fellow prisoners by these evidences of 
official partiality. He received boxes of candy, fruit, 
cigars, smoking tobacco and flowers in abundance; these 
he distributed among the patients at the hospital in 
which he was supposed to be a clerk to the chief physi- 
cian. Never in all his days had ‘‘Old Nigger Bill’’ 
smoked so many and such good cigars as those he relished 
with ever-inereasing frequency during the stay of Debs. 
Bill loved to bathe in the reflected glory of "Gene, and 
finally came to look upon himself as Debs’s personal 
valet. He would scrub the bathtub to a fine polish each 
morning before Debs took his plunge, and once Debs 
remarked, ‘‘The old rascal seems to think he is filling 
the tub with holy water for a prince or potentate.’’ 
On one of my visits to Moundsville, Warden Terrell 
escorted me over to Debs’s room. Debs was seated at 
his table writing letters. He instantly arose and greeted 
his keeper kindly as though Terrell were an old friend. 
For some minutes both men chatted in clubby fashion, 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 81 


laughing and jesting. It seemed that Debs quite forgot 
that he was the prisoner, and Terrell seemed oblivious 
of the fact that it was he who had finally ordered the 
barred gates closed upon Debs. The next moment Debs 
stooped over his big suit-case, fished out a fresh box of 
cigars, and offered it to the warden. The latter hesitated 
and Debs took up a handful of the Havanas and thrust 
them in the warden’s coat pocket. Terrell protested 
that he had a box of cigars of his own. 

“Well, take these anyway, Mr. Warden,”’ said Debs, 
“they were sent to me yesterday by one of the sweetest 
comrades I ever knew.’’ 

The warden smiled. ‘‘Do you know, Debs,”’ he said 
in mock-serious tone, ‘‘I am beginning to feel the least 
_ bit jealous of you. If I had so many people who loved 
me as intensely as your friends love you, and who would 
say such nice things about me as they say about you, 
I think I should be willing to be a prisoner myself.’’ 
Debs showed the slightest trace of embarrassment. 

“‘Well, Mr. Warden, if you are ever in my place I want 
to be your warden so that I might have a chance to treat 
you as kindly as you have treated me,’’ said Debs, and 
both men laughed at the incongruity of the picture. 

““Oh, Debs, I’m not treating you kindly,’’ argued the 
warden ; ‘‘I am merely treating you like a man.’’ 

It was a bright, sunny summer’s day, and more than 
800 prisoners .were scattered about on the spacious 
sward of the prison. Some were sitting alone. Others 
were in small groups. Many of them were smoking 
pipes, cigars and tobacco. But for the monotonous simi- 
larity of their clothing, and the gray stone wall that 
stretched forty feet from the ground and inclosed them, 
one could not have thought of these men as prisoners, 
but as workmen enjoying a half holiday. They were, 
indeed, enjoying a half holiday, for Warden Terrell had 
_ ordered all work suspended at noon that day, Saturday. 
These men were not workmen, though they had once 


82 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


been such, and many of them would be again. Now — 
they were all convicts. Bankers, tellers, burglars, slay- — 
ers, counterfeiters, forgers—men imprisoned for every 
conceivable offense, and now all on the same dead level 
of equality in the eyes of the state and of society. As — 
Warden Terrell passed these different groups of men not — 
a man lowered his eyes. Many of them looked straight 
at their keeper, some with smiling eyes of friendly ac- 
knowledgment, some with blank expressions, some whose 
faces were alight with hope of future liberty, while 
others gazed straight ahead at the great gray wall as if 
that stone panel were the very end of life and its mys- 
teries. On the lawn, the prison band was playing popu- 
lar airs. This was the scene that met Debs’s eyes as he © 
looked out of the window, brushing aside the white scrim 
curtains that hung from the lower half of the sashes. 
Pinned on the wall by the side of his bed was a maga- 
zine print of Christ. On his table, a rough affair of the — 
kitchen variety, painted with lead gray color, were nu- 
merous magazines and photographs of children and 
friends throughout the country. These had been sent 
to him since his incarceration. On the radiator there 
was a large picture of a little girl, the daughter of a 
Socialist in Ohio. Several candy boxes containing flow- 
ers plucked in open fields by children lay on a chair. 
One of these he showed to me and the letter that ac- 
companied it: 


457 West 151st St., 
New York City, N. Y., 
May 27, 1919. 
Dear Comrape Dess: 

Just a few lines to let you know how many of us 
still love you. I hope, and all my friends hope, that the 
prison bars do not ruin your health. Comrade, you 
have no idea how bad we feel about you. Isn’t it awful 
that you must stay there? It is very noble of you in- 
deed not to want to come out unless your fellow workers 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON’ 838 


come out. But don’t you worry, all will turn out all 
right, those Conenscious (conscientious) Objectors and 
other fellow-workers and dear Kate O’Hare, who have 
worked for the cause, will come out. Though it isn’t 
pleasant to be behind bars, it must feel wonderful to 
know you have accomplished a great deal and that you 
are behind bars for a very good cause. 

But let’s not talk about that. Spring is just as beau- 

tiful, and I am sending you a Lily-of-the-Valley from 
our garden. I hope you soon will be able to enjoy spring 
again. Of course you will, and when you do I certainly 
will rejoice, and so will all my friends. Don’t lose 
courage, dear Comrade, remember your little comrades 
still love you, and you love us, that we know. Just 
you wait, when you come out all nature will rejoice with 
you and all who love you. 

Comrade, remember when at Carnegie Hall I gave you 
a bunch of American Beauties, with a banner with 
“<Votes for Women’’ on it, and when you lifted me up 
and kissed me that thrill went through me I shall never 
forget. To be kissed by such a wonderful man... . 

But all your work to give women the vote was not 
useless, for you see they got the vote. Also your work 
-for Socialism will not be useless. The working class 
shall soon wake up and realize. I am now just eleven, 
and when I grow up I will follow your footsteps. I 
hope I and all my fellow comrades will be able to enjoy 
your noble work. 

Yours for a Wonderful Cause, 
Your Little Comrade, 
Hazen Kiorz. 

To this little girl’s letter Debs replied on May 31: 
My pear Comrape Hazeu: 

Your very dear letter with the Lily-of-the-Valley at- 
tached has come to me and I thank you with all my 
heart for your loving remembrance. You are certainly 
a true little friend and a noble young comrade. ... 


84 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS > ; 


I note all you say and your sweet message touches 3 


me deeply. How very fortunate I am to have the con- 


fidence and love of such fine comrades! All is well with — 


me here and in good time everything will eome out 
right. Thanking you again, my dear little comrade, 
and with much love to you and all your household and 
other comrades, I am ever, PAD 
Yours devotedly, 
KB. V. Dress. 

Referring to his mail, Debs said letters had been pour- 
ing in upon him by the thousands. On Easter Sunday 
he-received a dozen boxes of flowers. 


‘‘T want to say that if I had to come to prison, Il am 


glad I came here. I have not heard an unkind word 
since I arrived, and every official, from the warden 


down, has been kind to me and solicitous about my ~ 


health,’’ said Debs. The matter of the warden’s treat- 
ment to him is further attested by him in the following 
letter to me: 

Moundsville, W. Va., April 22, 1919. 
My pear ComrApe Davin: 

A thousand thanks! You can never know how very 
much I appreciate all your kindness. Your coming 
here with me was so good of you, and the many fine 
things you have said and written in your splendid ar- 
ticles will abide with me for all time. 

I wish you could have been here long enough to know 
the warden, Mr. Terrell, as I have learned to know 
him. He occupies a very trying and diffieult position 
and my being here under the circumstances does not 
make things easier for him. He has certainly treated 
me as well as he possibly can under the rules of the 
prison which, as you know, he is expected to enforce 
impartially, and there are not a few who would be glad 


to see him subject me to the severest discipline and set. 


me at the hardest tasks. Mr. Terrell has had all regard 
for my health, and he has in every other way treated 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 85 


me not only humanely but kindly, and I am sure he 
has the welfare of all the prisoners at heart and does 
the very best he can by them all, But after all, it’s a 
prison, and I am sure there are many things he would 
do differently if he were free to carry out his own indi- 
vidual wishes. Hundreds of letters, telegrams, ete., are 
coming here. I could not begin to answer them all even 
if it were not for the prison rules. I appreciate each 
loving word—each touch of comradely kindness. 
Believe me always, always, 
Yours in loving comradeship, 
GENE. 

P.S.—Tell the comrades they must not worry about 
me in the least. I am all right. There is nothing to 
regret, nothing to fear—there is everything to hope for, 
and to live and work for. 

On Haster Sunday he went to the chapel services. 

“*T sat in the middle of all the prisoners,’’ said ’Gene. 
*“It was a wonderful sight. In the very midst of all 
their sorrows and their miseries there was a wonderful 
spirit that shone in the faces of all the prisoners. I 
would not have missed this experience for anything in 
the world. It means so much to me. It has enriched 
my life. Why, I have callers every day. These men, 
scores of them, come to my room and ask me to write 
letters for them, letters to their families and applica- 
tions for pardons. They all seem to have discovered me. 
They tell me their stories and their hopes for the 
future.’’ ! 

Debs spoke of Archdeacon Spurr of the Reynolds 
Memorial Hospital, near Moundsville, who had paid 
him frequent visits. 

“The deacon brought me this tie that I am wearing, 
and asked me if I needed any money for my family! 
What do you think of that? If there was as much 
kindness and good feeling on the outside world as I have 
seen within these walls all would be well with the 


86 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


world,’’ he said. Debs’s tie was dark blue, of the flow- 
ing variety. ‘‘The deacon is not a bit ‘churchy,’ just 
a fine human being with a great heart,’’ Debs volun- 
teered. At the end of this visit, April 28, I mentioned 
that I might have time to stop at Altoona, Pennsylvania, 
to see William F. Gable, whom I knew to be a man 
of generous heart, and for many years a warm admirer 
of Debs; that I would go west and try to see Mrs. 
O’Hare at Jefferson City, Missouri, prison, and to 
Leavenworth, Kansas, prison to see William D. Hay- 
wood. Debs’s face lit up at once at the mention of 
these names. 

“‘Be sure you give Gable my love,’’ he said. ‘‘His 
is one of the sweetest natures I ever knew—an exceed- 
ingly good and generous man. When you get to Leay- 
enworth take my love to Bill Haywood and the other 
boys. We are all in prison for the same thing—at- 
tempting to be true to ourselves and those whom we 
serve. In the final sum we all stand together—I. W. W. 
and all—the world’s workers. 

‘‘Tf you are allowed to see Kate, tell her I am keep- 
ing the light burning in West Virginia as I know she 
is doing in Missouri. Her case was harder than mine. 
She left four beautiful children behind when they took 
her off to prison. I had no little children of my own 
to leave—I just left all the children behind.’’ There 
was a strain of infinite tenderness and sadness in his 
voice as he spoke the last, and his whole frame was 
vibrant with the love that flooded his heart and moist- 
ened his pale blue eyes. 

On my second visit, June 7, Debs talked of prisoners, 
the prison problem and John Brown, the martyred 
abolitionist of Civil War days. 

‘‘T have been in many jails and prisons, and have 
seen numberless criminals, old and young, male and 
female, and of every hue and shade, and my heart 
is with them all. I cannot pity them without con- 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 87 


demning myself. But I can love them, and I do. I 
love them for what they are, foul and repulsive as they 
may appear to those whose cry of ‘unclean’ but mocks 
the dead sense of their own guilt and shame. 

**Many an innocent soul,’’ he went on, raising his 
voice, ‘‘branded with crime, is vainly beating its tired 
wings against the steel bars of a prison cage. But the 
guilty! Who shall dare to judge them? What sinless, 
spotless saint among us may pronounce them wicked 
and sentence them to prison? The very lowest and 
most degenerate of criminals is not a whit worse than 
I. The difference between us is against me, not him. 
All of my life I have been the favored one, the creature 
of fortune. We both did the best we could, and the 
worst we knew how, and I am the beneficiary of society 
of which he is the victim.’’ The last remark caused me 
to remind Debs that he was not now ‘“‘the favored 
ereature’’ of society, but rather its banished benefactor. 

““No, that is not exactly correct,’’ he replied at once. 
*‘T am so much more fortunate than those who are now 
sharing my lot with me. My thoughts are not in this 
place; I do not see these gray walls, nor am I conscious 
of these steel bars. Only my clay is here, and that 
might just as well be here as anywhere else. I can live 
here with my soul at peace; I can live on the increment 
of the love of my comrades and friends in the world 
outside these walls. But these men—and I know many 
of them by their first names now—were once workmen. 
For the most part they have been used and exploited. 
When they had nothing more to give, had given their 
all—soul and body—and strove at last to make the best 
of a bad bargain and erred, society then put them out 
of sight. They were no good any longer. They could 
not be used any longer. Put them away! They are 
unclean! 

*‘Think of the monstrous crime of punishing the 
brother we have deformed for the wrong he has suf- 


88 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS. 


fered at our hands! Think of torturing his body and > 
deforming his soul for having had the awful misfortune — 
to be the dehumanized victim of our own inhumanity. 
Is it any wonder that in a perverted, wicked system 
the basest passions are aroused, hate and lust fill the © 
world, and fire and slaughter ravage the race?’’ 

Rarely before had his eyes betokened firmer conviction 
than when he said now: | 
‘“‘T belong in prison. I belong where men are made 
to suffer for the wrongs committed against them by a 
brutalizing system. I have talked about this thing and 
these social conditions all of my life, and now the fates 
have given to me the opportunity to practice what I 

have preached. 

“‘T belong to this stratum of society,’’ he repeated 
with signal emphasis. ‘‘The roots of the social system 
are here. They are nowhere else. 

**‘T would not harm a hair in the head of any human 
being on earth,’’ he went on, with rising fire and re- 
newed force, ‘‘but before I pass beyond I would like 
to have all the plutocrats, the profiteers, the exploiters 
of labor and their mistresses in their satins and their 
jewels—all those who believe this is a just social system 
and who support it—to sit in a great grandstand, and 
I would then parade before their seeing eyes this pageant 
of misery—the criminals, the sick, the halt and the 
blind. I think that any man or woman who could wit- 
ness such a spectacle without feeling his and her just 
share of social responsibility for it all must surely have © 
hearts of granite, and have become as gross and as 
dehumanized as they make out these poor souls to be.’’ 
Debs’s eyes wandered toward the window whose curtains 
were gently blowing in the June breeze, and he saw 
precisely the very same creatures about whom he had 
just been speaking so vehemently. At this moment the 
prison band struck up ‘‘Maryland, My Maryland.’’ 
Long ago the Socialists had parodized the words and 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 89 


entitled them ‘‘We’ll Keep the Red Flag Waving.’’ 
Debs noted the significance of the music. There was 
flare and fire in the swelling notes that flew high 
over the prison walls just like the hopes of some of 
the men who dotted the green sward here and there 
within the inclosure. 

“Of course, it is fine and thrilling to ke in the outside 
world mingling with noble spirits and kindly souls 
who illuminate the earth with the light of their generous 
love, but some must be in places like this, else how could 
we differentiate between light and darkness? And I 
am as pleased to be here as any.’’: 

Maybe a few among those who know Debs have some- 
times thought that the stone walls, the steel bars and the 
locks would harden his heart, tame the currents that 
sweep his mind and weaken his spirit. Men have been 
broken in chains and in other forms of restraint. They 
have become sullen and dead to all save the physical life 
under the pressure of prison. But Debs says that many 
of these were of broken or wavering spirit before they 
were fettered and striped, and when the last straw in 
the form of a cell was weighted upon them they were 
left stranded, suspended between the spiritual and phys- 
ical equations, with little or no conception of the re- 
storative power of the former, and with but a sickening, 
haunting memory of the latter. More than once Debs 
has said he could go to the stake without batting an 
eye and with song in his heart, if he knew he was right. 
That is actually the manner in which he entered prison 
three times in his life—Woodstock, Moundsville and 
Atlanta. His spirit is adamant. It has and will sustain 
him to the end of his days. 

While Debs talked rapidly and earnestly of the prison 
problem, I remembered having read his speech on 
that very subject, delivered before the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury Club, at Delmonico’s, New York, March 21, 1899. 


90 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


I shall quote certain pregnant passages from that 
speech : 

“‘From the earliest ages there has been a prison prob- 
lem. The ancients had their bastiles and their dungeons. 
Most of the pioneers of progress, the haters of oppres- 
sion, the lovers of liberty, whose names now glorify 
the pantheon of the world, made such imstitutions a 
necessity in their day. But civilization advances, how- 
ever slowly, and there has been some progress, It re- 
quired five hundred years to travel from the inquisition 
to the injunction. 

“In the earlier days punishment was the sole purpose 
of imprisonment. Offenders against the ruling class 
must pay the penalty in prison eell, which, not infre- 
quently, was equippéd with instruments of torture. 
With the civilizing process came the idea of the reforma- 
tion of the culprit, and this idea prompts every investi- 
gation made of the latter-day problem. The inmates 
must be set to work for their own good, no less than 
for the good of the state. 

“‘Tt was at this point that the convict labor problem 
began and it has steadily expanded from that time 
to this and while there has been some temporary modi- 
fications of the evil, it is still an unmitigated curse 
from which there can be no escape while an economic 
system endures in which labor, that is to say, the laborer, 
man, woman and child, is sold to the lowest bidder in 
the markets of the world.... 

‘Fortunately the system of leasmg and contracting ~ 
prison labor for private exploitation is being exposed 
and its frightful iniquities laid bare. Thanks to or- — 
ganized labor and the spirit of prison reform, this hor- 
rifying phase of the evil is doomed to ° AS any before 
an enlightened public sentiment. | 

** All useful labor is honest ee even if performed in © 
a prison. Only the labor of exploiters, such as specula-_ 
tors, stock gamblers, beef-embalmers and their mercen- 


«=. 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 91 


ary politicians, lawyers and other parisites—only such 
is dishonest labor. A thief making shoes in a peniten- 
tiary. is engaged in more useful and therefore more 
honest labor than a ‘‘free’’ stone mason at work on a 
palace whose foundations are laid in the skulls and 
bones and cemented in the sweat and blood of ten 
thousand victims of capitalistic exploitation. In both 
eases the labor is compulsory. The stone mason would 
not work for the trust magnate were he not compelled 
RE ssl 

““To the student of social science the haggard fact 
stands forth that under the competitive system of pro- 
duction and distribution the prison problem will never 
be solved—and its effect upon trade and industry will 
never be greatly modified. The fact will remain that 
whatever labor is performed by prison labor could and 
should be performed by free labor, and when in the 
march of economic progress the capitalist system of 
industry for private profit succumbs to the Socialist 
system of industry for human happiness, when the fac- 
tory, which is now a penitentiary crowded with life 
convicts, among whom children often constitute the ma- 
jority—when this factory is transformed into a temple 
of science, and the machine, myriad armed and tireless, 
is the only slave, there will be no prison labor and the 
problem will cease to vex the world, and to this it is 
coming in obedience to the economic law, as unerring in 
its operation as the law of gravitation. 

“That prison labor is demoralizing in its effect on 
trade and industry whenever and wherever brought into 
competition with it, especially under the various forms 
of the contract system, is of course conceded, but that 
it has been, or is at present, a great factor in such de- 
moralization is not admitted. There is a tendency to 
exaggerate the blighting effect of prison labor for the 
purpose of obscuring the one overshadowing cause of 
demoralized trade and impoverished industry. 


92 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS | 


‘*Prison labor did not reduce the miner to a walking 
hunger pang, his wife to a tear-stained rag, and his home 
to a lair. Prison labor is not responsible for the squares — 
of squalor and miles of misery in New York City, Chi- 
cago and all other centers of population. Prison labor 
is not chargeable with the sweating dens in which the 
victims of capitalistic competition crouch in-dread and — 
fear until death comes to their rescue. Prison labor had © 
no hand in Ceeur d’Alene, Tennessee, Homestead, Hazle- 
ton, Virdin, Pana, that suburb of hell called Pullman, © 
and other insanguine industrial battlefields where thou- 
sands of workingmen after being oppressed and robbed — 
were imprisoned life-felons, and shot down like vaga- | 
bond dogs; where venal judges issued infamous injunc- 
tions and despotic orders at the behest of their masters, © 
enforcing them with deputy marshals armed with pis- 
tols and clubs and supported by troops with gleaming ~ 
bayonets and shotted guns to drain the veins of work- 
ingmen of blood, but for whose labor this continent © 
would still be a wilderness. Only the tortures of hun- 
ger and nakedness provoked protest, and this was Si- 
lenced by the bayonet and bullet; by the club and the 
blood that followed the blow. 

“‘Prison labor is not accountable for the appalling 
increase in insanity, in suicide, in murder, in prostitu- 
tion and a thousand other forms of vice and crime which 
pollute every fountain and contaminate every stream 
designed to bless the world. 

**Prison labor did not create our army of unem- 
ployed, but has been recruited from its ranks, and both 
owe their existence to the same social and economic 
system. 

‘Nor are the evil effects confined exclusively to the 
poor working class. There is an aspect of the case 
in which the rich are as unfortunate as the poor. The 
destiny of the capitalist class is irrevocably linked with — 
the working class. Fichte, the great German philoso- 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 93 


pher, said: ‘Wickedness increases in proportion to the 
elevation of rank.’ 

“*Prison labor is but one of the manifestations of our 
economic development and indicates its trend. The 
same cause that demoralized industry has crowded our 
prisons. Industry has not been impoverished by prison 
labor, but prison labor is the result of impoverished 
industry. ... 

*‘The prison laborer produces by machinery in abun- 
dance but does not consume. The child likewise produees, 
but owing to its small wages, does not consume. So 
with the vast army of workers whose wage grows smaller 
as the productive capacity of labor increases, and then 
society is afflicted with over-production, the result of 
under-consumption. What follows? The panic. Fac- 
tories close down, wage workers are idle and suffer, 
middle class business men are forced into bankruptcy, 
the army of tramps is increased, vice and crime are ram- 
pant, and prisons and workhouses are filled to overflow- 
ing as are sewers when the streets of cities are deluged 
with floods. 

“*Prison labor, like all cheap labor, is at first a source 
of profit to the capitalist, but finally it turns into a 
two-edged sword that cuts into and destroys the system 
that produced it.... 

‘‘There is proverb which the Latin race sent ringing 
down the centuries which reads, ‘Oma Vincit Amor,’ 
or ‘Love conquers all things.” Love and labor in al- 
liance, working together, have transforming, redeeming 
and emancipating power. Under their benign sway the 
world can be made better and brighter. 

‘‘Tsaiah saw in prophetic vision a time when nations 
should war no more—when swords should be trans- 
formed into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks. 
The fulfillment of the prophecy only awaits an era when 
Love and Labor, in holy alliance, shall solve the economic 
problem. ... 


94 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — 


‘‘The army of begging "azarae with the dogs lick- 
ing their sores at the gates of palaces where the rich are 
_ clothed in purple and fine linen, with their tables groan- 


ing beneath the luxuries of all climes, make the palaces © 
on the highland where fashion holds sway and music © 


lends its charms, a picture in the landscape which, in 
illustrating disparity, brings into bolder rehef the hut 
and the hovel in the hollow where want, gaunt and hag- 
gard, sits at the door and where light and plenty, cheer- 
fulness and hope are forever exiled by the despotie de- 


| 


wy 


eree of conditions as cruel as when the Ozar of Russia — 


ordered to his penal mines in Siberia the hapless sub- 
jects who dared whisper the sacred word of liberty—as 
cruel aS when this boasted land of freedom commands 
that a far away, innocent people shall be shot down in 
jungle and lagoon, in their bamboo huts, because they 
dream of freedom and independence.’’ 

Sixty years ago—in 1859—John Brown, of Kansas, 


was hung by the neck at Charlestown, Virginia, that 


portion of the state which is now West Virginia, be- 
cause he carried the black man’s burden in his heart. 
He was executed for having attempted to free the 
chattel slaves from bondage by his raid on Harper’s 
Ferry, but the slaves either did not wish to be free, or 
else were entirely ignorant of the measure of freedom 
that would have been theirs had John Brown and the 
other abolitionists of that period accomplished their 
purpose, which was ultimately tried and vindicated a 
few years later in the War of the Rebellion. Of course, 
it was merely a coincident that Eugene Victor Debs was 
originally sentenced to serve his term of ten years in 
prison in West Virginia, the same state in which Brown 
paid the full pound of flesh for his devotion to a prin- 
ciple. In prison, in the year 1919, in the moment of 
the most widespread propaganda and preachments for 
world-wide liberty and democracy, I spoke with Debs 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 95 


about John Brown, whose martyred memory is dear to 
him, and which he passionately reveres. 

“Many years ago,’’ Debs said, ‘‘I went over every 
foot of ground trod by John Brown and his men—at 
Harper’s Ferry, across the bridge, and the nine-mile 
stretch to Charlestown. I went through the jail where 
Brown lay for days preceding his execution. 

*‘T have the candle,’’ he went on, ‘‘which Brown 
used to light up his cell at Charlestown. But John 
Brown did not need the light of a candle to light up his 
eell; the white light of his soul was quite sufficient.’’ 
Debs also treasures a button from Brown’s coat which, 
he says, has been properly authenticated. 

In some respects Debs and Brown are similiar in 
their principles, and the impassioned manner in which 
both sought to bring them into effect. The dissimilarity 
of the two men appears, however, in their methods of 
procedure, their tactics. It has been said that were 
Brown alive in our time he would have enlisted his 
energies in the cause of the Industrial Workers of the 
World—his mind seeming to have taken the turn of 
“‘direct action,’’ as proved by his fearless, yet fool- 
hardy raid upon Harper’s Ferry with a beggardly 
handful of followers pitted against the entire South. On 
the other hand, Debs is no less zealous, nor less fearless, 
but his appeal has been made not to unthinking mobs, 
who could be swayed by their emotions, but to the in- 
telligent and thinking working class; his appeal is made 
to their reason, not to their emotions, despite the fact 
that Debs himself is highly emotional, and his speeches 
do assume the character and tone of an agitator, a cru- 
sader. © 

That both men believed their cause was just and pur- 
sued it unflinchingly in the face of extreme adversity 
is further attested by passages from their speeches to 
the court before sentence was pronounced upon them. 
Brown said : 


96 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


‘‘In the first place, I deny everything but what I 
have all along admitted—the design on my part to free 
the slaves. I certainly intended to have made a clean 
thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went 
into Missouri and took slaves without the snapping of 


a gun on either side, moved them through the country _ 


and, finally, left them in Canada. I designed _to have 
done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was 
all I intended.’’ 

Debs said: s 

‘“Yes, I was opposed to war. I would have been op- 
posed to war if I stood alone. I am perfectly willing, on 
that count, to be branded as a disloyalist, and if it is 
a crime under the American laws, punishable by im- 
prisonment, for being opposed to human bloodshed, I 
am perfectly willing to be clothed im the stripes of a 
felon and to end my days in a prison eell.”’ 

While John Brown was riding to his execution in a 
large furniture wagon drawn by two white horses, and 
which also contained his coffin, he remarked: 

‘‘What a beautiful country this is. I have never 
been down this way before.’’ 

On his ride in a trolley car down the Ohio Valley 
from Cleveland to Moundsville, Debs said: 

‘‘What a beautiful day it is. I have been all over this 
part of the country and have talked to thousands of 
these miners.”’ 

At one point in the John Brown talk Debs remarked 
that while Brown was lying in his cell at Charlestown 
an old Negro slave pleaded on his bended knees to his 
master for the privilege of taking an ax and going into 
Brown’s cell and braining him. 

““That was his way of attesting his loyalty to his 
master who held him in bondage, body and soul. That 
was his way of Ee his slavishness and abject ser- 
vility. 

‘‘There are to-day workmen with minds that run in 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 97 


the same groove as their master’s, and doubtless, some 
of them would attest their slavishness and devotion to 
their industrial masters by doing the same thing to 
other John Browns.’’ 

Once during his trip to Moundsville, Debs remarked: 

““Were I to engage in satire, I would say how ironical 
it seems that I, who have been forty years in the service 
of organized labor am now being taken to prison by 
union men.’’ Just before this remark was passed a 
eonductor had come through the car to collect fares 
and on the lapel of his coat was his union button. 

Not only was Debs taken to prison without any or- 
ganized opposition from the American labor movement, 
but the American Federation of Labor, at its 1919 con- 
vention at Atlantic City, did nothing to obtain his re- 
lease; neither did it ask for the release by amnesty of 
any political and industrial prisoners convicted and 
sentenced under a war-time statute—the Espionage Law. 
Despite this gross neglect of Debs, there were a number 
of bodies within that organization in several parts of 
the country who espoused his cause and petitioned for 
his release. 

The Chicago Federation of Labor, embracing a quar- 
ter of a million organized workers, for instance, adopted 
the following resolution after the major body of the 
American Federation of Labor had adjourned: 

““Whereas, Eugene V. Debs has devoted the larger 
part of his life to the working class in its struggle for 
better conditions; and 

“‘Whereas, he was convicted and sentenced to ten 
years imprisonment as a result of war-time passion, the 
war now being ended, the Chicago Federation of Labor 
insisting upon restoring pre-war liberties, urge the im- 
mediate release of Hugene V. Debs and urge that reso- 
lutions to this effect be adopted by all labor bodies and 
upon adoption that a copy be sent to the President of 
the United States, the Senators of the state where 


98 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


adopted and the congressmen of the district wherein 
the resolution is adopted.’’ 

It cannot be said that there has existed friendliness 
between Debs and the executive and administrative offi- 
cials of the American Federation of Labor. On the con- 
trary, he has attacked them unsparingly in the Socialist 
press, for what he has construed as being their reaction- 
ary tendencies not only in the affairs of their own 
organization, but in their policies and attitude toward 
matters of public import.) In a word, Debs is revolu- 
tionary, while the American Federation of Labor, offi- 
cially, he claims, has not yet reached even the rebel 
Stage. 

Debs’s, affections as a labor leader are more attached 
to the Industrial Workers of the World, in the crea- 
tion of which organization he played no little part. 

When our conversation had departed from the subject 
of John Brown, Debs inquired about the welfare and 
whereabouts of several persons with whom his name and 
his affections have been connected for many years. Es- 
pecially mentioned among these was Horace Traubel, 
who had been extremely ill, and who died September 8th, 
1919. 

Follows one of Debs’s letters written in prison to 
Traubel: 

Moundsville, W. Va., April 25, 1919. 
My BELOVED Horace: 

Your beautiful messages, with you and your wonderful 
love in each word, are with me and my heart sings in 
love and gratitude. You have been with me every hour 
and every moment since I’ve been here, and I’ve pressed 
you so close to my heart that I’ve forgotten all about 
prison walls. 

Dear Dave Karsner, who so loves us both and who is 
equally dear to me, told me all about you. 1’m so sorry 
you’re not well. You simply must come back to yourself — 
and to me for we need you now, dear brother, as never 


TWO MONTHS AT MOUNDSVILLE PRISON 99 


before. I wish you knew how immortally great you are, 
what an incomparable contribution you have made to 
humanity, and how very necessary you are now to the 
world. 

I have a truly wonderful letter from our dear Mildred 
Bain—a prose-poem—of love and devotion in all its 
beauty and perfection. What a rare courageous, lofty 
soul she is, and how rich you are in her noble appre- 
ciation, and how indebted to you I am for sharing in 
her precious confidence and regard. I remember the 
happy hour we had with her splendid husband, Frank, 
and some good day I hope to have the joy of meeting 
these loving souls. 

My writing is limited under the prison rules. You 
understand that my messages go to you daily without 
the written page and that my heart is and always will 
be with you. 

I am well cared for here in every way, so give yourself 
no concern about me. I have everything I need and a 
perfectly humane Warden who is as good to me as the 
rules will allow—I’m here for a purpose and I know how 
to be patient. The lessons I am learning here are of 
inestimable value to me and I am not sorry that my 
lot is cast for a time among ‘‘Les Misérables.’’ 

With my heart’s enduring love to you and dear Mrs. 
Traubel and Gertrude and her husband, I am 

Yours until the stars go out, 
GENE. 

As we shook hands in parting, I realized that Debs 
was not conscious of me as an individual; and as he 
looked into my eyes I knew that his vision, as always, 
vaulted all walls and mountains, and bridged all rivers 
and horizons; he was looking, as always, far beyond 
the immediate person, and was clasping the hand of the 
miner, the trench digger, the locomotive fireman, the 
carpenter, the bricklayer, the mason, the mechanic—the 
artisan everywhere; his love was smiling upon the half- 


100 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


starved and stunted shop worker, the little children bent 
in arduous toil at the looms in the southland ; the breaker 
boys in the mines, the teachers, the organizers, and the 
Jimmie and Jane Higginses—he was bestowing his bene- 
diction upon the people who toil everywhere. Myself, 
each person he spoke to, was only the 2 dig aih) of 
all men and women to iat a 


rit 


CHAPTER V 
TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 


T was a day of mourning among the prisoners at 

Moundsville when Debs was transferred to Atlanta. 
On the morning of June 13, 1919, after Debs had had 
his breakfast, Warden Terrell came to his room in the 
prison hospital and told him that he was to pack his 
things at once and take the trip to Atlanta prison. He 
Was given one hour to get ready. The warden stated 
afterward that when he first told Debs the latter had 
appeared startled, and then slightly depressed, but he 
had made no scene nor visible sign of his feelings, and 
quietly replied that he would ‘‘be ready in a jiffy.’’ 
The blue serge suit that he had worn to prison was 
brought to him, and in a few minutes he was dressed. 
He began at once to pack his large leather suit-case. 
It was soon apparent to Debs that he could not take with 
him to Atlanta all of his prison property. There had 
accumulated many gifts, enough to fill two ample pack- 
ing boxes, since he had been at Moundsville, so ‘‘Old 
Nigger Bill,’’ Debs’s side-partner and self-appointed 
valet, was instantly mustered into active service by Debs 
to help him pack. 

When ‘‘Old Nigger Bill’’ was called into the room 
and his eyes fell upon Debs clothed in street attire they 
danced to the tune of the song that was in his heart 
for he thought that Debs had been pardoned. But when 


he was made to understand the full import of this sud- 


den change he could not be comforted. 


“What am dey doin’ dis foh, Mistah Debs?’’ he in- 
quired with husky voice; ‘‘ain’t we all happy heah to- 
101 


102 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS © 


gethu? Ain’t we gettin’ along all right?’’ Debs took 
the two fat cheeks of the old Negro ‘‘lifer’’ between his 
palms and patted them gently, saying as he did so, 
“Tt is all right, Old Bill, everything will come out all 
right; we’ll not forget each other, will we?’’ The two 
men set to work at packing. te 

‘‘Old Bill’’ started to weep softly. Every little while 
he would sing with violent emphasis a verse from some 
Methodist hymn, in vain and futile attempt to smother 
his sobs. 

““Now stop that crying, Bill, and wrap up this bundle 
for me,’’ Debs would command in kindly tones. ‘‘One 
would suppose that you were losing your wife, the way 
you are carrying on, you old rascal.’’ 

“‘Old Bill’? dropped on the floor the bundle he was 
tieing and looked straight into Debs’s eyes. 

‘‘T’m losin’ the best friend I evah had, Mistah Debs,’’ 
sobbed the darky, breaking afresh into a flood of tears. 
“It wouldn’t be so bad if you was goin’ home, but to 
help you to go to another prison—it’s too much, Mistah 
Debs, it’s too much.’’ Finally the packing was accom- 
plished. Debs addressed each parcel, indicating where 
it should be sent. This was done at the suggestion of 
the warden who assured Debs that all of his property 
would be well cared for, even that which he might chose 
to leave behind for some future time. 

Debs then went the rounds of the hospital, bidding ~ 
each man good-by and extending his hand to all alike. 
Some of the prisoners were abed, while others were in 
wheel chairs on the porch. To each man Debs gave 
cigars, fruit and candy which had been sent to him by 
his friends. Tears ran in rivulets down the hollow 
cheeks of three tubercular patients over whom Debs had 
watched with tender care. There was unutterable sad-— 
ness and misery among these men. They were not So- 
cialists. They did not comprehend the social ideals to” 
which Debs adhered. They had come to know him only 


TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 103 


as a man—a loving, gentle, thoughtful, tender compan- 
jon who understood them; one who did not pity them, 
but who championed them. They understood this only 
from the look in his eyes, and from the smile that 
wreathed his wrinkled face when he was near them. And 
now he had bid them good-by. 

One of them called after him: 

“Tf ever you run again for President, Mr. Debs, and 
I’m out of here, put me down for one vote.”’ 

**And if ever you are in sorrow or trouble,’’ replied 
Debs, ‘‘put me down as one friend.’’ 

When Debs finally left the prison ‘‘Old Nigger Bill’’ 
was sitting on the stone steps of the hospital, a broom 
between his knees, his kinky head lying heavily in his 
folded arms. He had cried all he could. The tears 
would not come any more. But Time would, and with 
it would come balm for his poor, distracted soul. 

It is doubtful if the movements of a President of the 
United States have ever been guarded with more care 
and caution in critical moments than were those of 
Debs from the time he left Moundsville until he reached 
Atlanta. He motored to Wheeling, a ten-mile run, with 
Warden Terrell, the latter’s son, just home from college, 
and a prison guard, At the Baltimore and Ohio railroad 
station the party was joined by United States Marshal 
Ned Smith, of Fairmont, West Virginia, and Deputy 
Joyce of Parkersburg. Debs chatted pleasantly with 
the warden and his son. When Debs entrained there 
were more than one hundred persons in the train shed, 
and not a single person, aside from the members of his 
party, knew that he was there. 

Fearful lest some hitch might occur at the last mo- 
ment to balk their plans to spirit Debs away into the 
south, the United States Marshal had instructed the 
managers of the Western Union and the Postal Telegraph 
companies in Wheeling to accept no newspaper ‘‘copy”’ 
from any reporter dealing with the Debs case. This 


104 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


censorship of the nation’s wires concerning Debs was © 
kept for twenty-four hours, being lifted at seven o’clock — 
the next morning, June 14, when Debs was then but 

a few hours away from Atlanta Prison. . 

Debs left Wheeling on the 10:40 train for Cincinnati, | 
where he changed for the Louisville and Nashville rail-_ 
road to Atlanta. He and his party arrived in the South- 
ern city early Saturday afternoon. The entire trip was’ 
made in a private compartment on both railroads. Debs — 
told me later when I visited him at Atlanta that both 
his guards had been genial and courteous to him and > 
tried to make the trip as comfortable as possible, but 
Debs spoke of the incident as ‘‘kidnaping.’”’ At Cin- 
cinnati he gave the following statement to the press: 

‘‘The first I knew I was to be transferred was this 
morning when I was told to get ready. It is all the 
same to me. I would have made no legal effort to pre- 
vent my transfer had J known of the plans. I care 
nothing about technicalities. During my trial I cau- 
tioned my lawyers to make no technical exceptions, and 
I admitted the truth when it was presented by the gov- 
ernment. 

‘In Moundsville I was treated with fairness and kind- 
ness and so were the other prisoners as far as I could 
observe. I was there two months and Warden Terrell 
showed himself to be a good administrator and at the 
same time a humane and considerate man.’’ 

Solicitous about Debs’s welfare up to the last, War- © 
den Terrell wrote a personal letter to Warden Fred G. 
Zerbst of Atlanta Federal Prison, which Marshal Smith 
took with him, explaining the manner and method of his 
treatment of Debs at Moundsville and expressing the 
hope that Warden Zerbst would himself be able to 
treat Debs in the same kindly manner. 

‘‘T am just as much concerned about Debs as a man 
as any of his followers,’’ Terrell said to me when I vis- 


TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 105 


ited him a few days after Debs had left his prison. ‘‘I 
told him that if any time I could serve him he should 
call upon me, and I mean that from the bottom of my 
heart.’ Of course there was not the slightest political 
affinity between Debs and his former keeper. Terrell 
is a Democrat and a member of his party in West Vir- 
ginia, He is the political appointee of a Democratic 
governor. Terrell does not believe in Debs’s social ideas. 
He regards them as visionary and impractical, but as a 
man Debs rises to heroic figure in the warden’s esteem. 
This was brought about during the two months that 
Debs was Terrell’s ward. The men had never met be- 
fore, although Terrell did know, as every one else does, 
of Debs by his reputation and public career. 

**T never in my life met a kinder man,’’ were Terrell’s 
words. ‘‘He is forever thinking of others, trying to 
serve them, and never thinking of himself.’’ 

For six weeks after Debs was shifted to Atlanta the 
reasons for his transfer were as mysterious as the se- 
erecy which had shrouded his actual movement to the 
Southern prison. Cryptic and laconic statements made 
by several officials of the Department of Justice at 
Washington in answer to inquiries of his friends and at- 
torneys only served to heighten the suspicion in the 
minds of Debs’s thousands of followers throughout the 
land that he had been ordered transferred to another 
prison because of the kindnesses and considerations 
given to him by his keeper at Moundsville. The of- 
ficials at Washington had the facts and could have 
allayed the mental unrest of Socialists and liberals in- 
terested in Debs and his welfare by giving them to the 
public. They chose not so to do. 

Joseph W. Sharts, an attorney at law, of Dayton, 
Ohio, who was associated in the defense of Debs at his 
trial in Cleveland, inquired of the Department of Jus- 
tice the reasons of Debs’s removal. In reply he received 
the following: 


106 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Sir: 

The Department of Justice has your letter of the 
18th instant, in which you ask to be informed as to the. 
grounds upon which Federal Prisoner, Eugene V. Debs, 
was transferred from West Virginia penitentiary to the 
Atlanta Federal prison. | 

‘Debs was ordered transferred upon a demand made 
by the State Board of Control for his removal. 

Respectfully, for the Attorney General, | 

CLAUDE R. PorTER, 

Assistant Attorney General. 

June 21, 1919. ) 

On June 26, Mr. Sharts dispatched a second letter to 
the Department of Justice, inquiring upon what legal — 
grounds Attorney General Palmer had removed Debs. 
Sharts quoted the law to the Attorney General upon 
which a federal prisoner may be removed. This statute, 
it appears, gives three grounds upon which such re- © 
moval can be made: First, the health of the prisoner, 
at his request; second, brutal treatment at the first place, — 
at his request for removal; third, the insecurity of the © 
place of confinement. | 

Under date of July.1, 1919, Sharts received the fol- 
lowing reply: 

SIR: 

In reply to your letter of the 26th ultimo, you are 
informed that the West Virginia State Board of Control — 
demanded the removal of Federal Prisoner Eugene V. 
Debs from the West Virginia Penitentiary, and the © 
transfer thereupon was directed by the Attorney General 
in accordance with the power vested in him by law to 
transfer federal prisoners under certain conditions. ~ 

Respectfully, for the Attorney General, 
Wituiam L. Finson, ra 
Assistant Attorney General. 

When the nation-wide interest in Debs’s removal, 

coupled with the fact that his treatment at Atlanta © 


TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 107 


was on the same dead level with that accorded the com- 
_monest prisoner, which is not conducive to perfect health 
nor happy spirits, was brought to the attention of John 
J. Cornwell, Governor of West Virginia, through a news- 
paper article in a Chicago Socialist paper, Governor 
Cornwell at once sent to me personally copies of the 
official correspondence between the West Virginia 
State Board of Control and F. H. Duehay, Superin- 
tendent of Prisons, Department of Justice, Washington, 
D. C. 

The State Board of Control sect forth in their letter, 
dated June 2, 1919, the fact that it had entered into an 
agreement -with the Federal Government to receive and 
eare for federal prisoners at the Moundsville Peniten- 
tiary for the sum of forty cents per day. Since that 
agreement was made, the Board complained, few federal 
prisoners had been received at Moundsville, and there 
was a likelihood that they would not receive any more. 
The Board’s letter further stated: 

“We have Eugene V. Debs . . . confined in the West 
Virginia Penitentiary, and since his admittance we 
have had to put on extra guard force, which has in- 
ereased our expenses $500.00 per month, but we felt it 
necessary to do this for his safety as well as that of the 
other prisoners. If we cannot get some federal prison- 
ers to help bear this extra expense in connection with 
his care we shall have to ask to have him cared for in 
some other institution.’’ 

The Board’s letter concluded with the request: 

“*Will you kindly let us know if you cannot arrange 
to let us have 100 or 150 prisoners.’’ 

In response to this letter Mr. Duehay, under date of 
June 5, 1919, replied that the government had found 
it necessary to use several state penitentiaries for the 
eare of regular federal prisoners, as well as a number of 
federal prisoners charged with violation of the Espion- 
age Law, since the two federal prisons, Atlanta and 


108 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — 


Leavenworth, had become overcrowded during the war 
with a large number of military prisoners. Since the 7 
signing of the armistice, however, many of the military © 
prisoners had been released, and this had made room for ~ 
regular federal prisoners. ' 

Then Mr. Duehay stated in his letter: _ 4 

‘In accordance with your request, I will have orders 
prepared immediately for the transfer of Federal Pris- ~ 
oner Eugene V. Debs from the Moundsville institu- ~ 
tion.”’ 

The orders were prepared and Debs, as we have seen, 
was removed to Atlanta Prison on June 13. f 
_ There does not appear to be anything mysterious, on F 

the face of these two documents at least, in the removal — 
of Debs. The matter might easily have been cleared up 
by giving this official information to the public, straight- ~ 
ly and directly. On the other hand, the officials in Mr. © 
Palmer’s department succeeded in arousing bitterness, — 
if not hatred in some quarters, against an important arm — 
of the government which, many persons imagined, had 
been raised to strike Debs down; to shorten his life by © 
forcing him to spend fourteen hours of every day in © 
a cell with five other prisoners; to deny him any and 
all considerations as a political prisoner, which he is in 
fact; and to cut him off from the world and its interests 
by withholding from him all newspapers, magazines and ~ 
books—leaving him absolutely alone. 

Warden Terrell did not know that Debs was to be — 
removed until a few hours before it happened. He was 
as surprised as any, he told me, when Marshal Smith 
demanded that he surrender Debs. The warden was 
not only shocked but regretful that Debs was going © 
from him. Terrell stated that when Debs first came to — 
Moundsville he did order one extra are light installed © 
at the corner of the hospital building near the room 
which Debs occupied. If I remember correctly, the 
warden: also stated that he did order a patrol of two 


TRANSFERRED TO ATLANTA 109 


extra guards in the vicinity of the hospital. He ex- 
plained that he took this extra precaution not on Debs’s 
account, but because he did not know the character of 
some of Debs’s friends who called to see him, and rather 
than bar them all out he had installed the extra guards. 
These he discontinued, however, after the first week or 
two that Debs was there, explaining later that he felt 
certain that Debs would encourage the visit of none 
whom he suspected as being untrustworthy. 

If we assume the correctness of Warden Terrell’s ver- 
sion of the expense entailed by his keeping Debs, it 
would appear that the State Board of Control might 
have overstated the total liability incurred by his pres- 
ence there in order to convince the government of the 
necessity of their receiving more federal prisoners at 
the rate of forty cents per day per man, and thus 
assure the self-sustaining qualities of Moundsville 
Prison. 

On the other hand, the whole incident might easily 
have arisen through misunderstanding; but whatever 
the motives or the lack of them, Debs was unquestionably 
the victim. 


CHAPTER VI 
EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 


UGENE VICTOR DEBS was born November 5, 

| 1855, in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was one of ten 
children of Jean Daniel Debs and Marguerite Bettrich 
Debs, both natives of Alsace. The father was born at 
Colmar, Alsace, France, December 4, 1820. He left 
Colmar on a sailing ship bound for America on No- 
vember 10, 1848, and arrived at New York City Janu- 
ary 20, 1849. Marguerite Marie Bettrich followed Mr. 
Debs to America shortly afterward, leaving Colmar on 
August 7, 1849, and arriving at New York September 
11, 1849. They were married in New York City two 
days later. The early movements of the parents are 
accounted for as follows: Left New York for Cincin- 
nati, Ohio, September 30, 1850; left Cincinnati for Terre 
Haute, May 20, 1851; left Terre Haute March 24, 1854, 
returning to New York and locating in Williamsburg, 
Long Island, now Brooklyn; left Brooklyn September 
25 of the same year, returning to Terre Haute where 
they permanently located. Of the ten children, six lived 
to adult age, four sisters, and one brother, Theodore. 
They made a happy family group. Both parents were 
passionately fond of their native country, France, the 


father having many stories to tell the children, gathered — 


about their humble fireside, of France’s shadows and 


sunshine. Jean Daniel Debs possessed a well equipped , 


library of French history, as well as the works of some ~ 
of the most noted French writers, including Victor — 


Hugo, who was one of their favorites. Very early in 


his life, Eugene became acquainted with the works of — 


110 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 111 


Hugo, and the master’s characterization of Jean Val 
Jean in ‘‘Les Misérables’? made an indelible impression 
upon his mind. 

Despite the happy and loving family in which Eugene 
was fortunate to have been born, his childhood was 
somewhat shadowed by the gathering clouds of war 
which were soon to deluge the nation with the blood 
of its sons and fathers in fratricidal strife over the 
issue of chattel slavery. He saw Indiana’s manhood 
march away to the battlefields, strong and sure in the 
justice of their cause, and he saw them return to their 
homes and huts, maimed, diseased and afflicted with all 
_the nameless ailments to which a warrior is heir. He 
heard the shrill sounds of strife and pain, the tramp, 
tramp, tramp of marching men going to victory and to 
death, and he saw some of them return beaten and sick 
in soul and body. One could not say to what extent 
these scenes and sounds of conflict influenced Eugene 
Debs to take his stand against war, but it is notable that 
not once in his long and varied career as a labor leader 
has he ever counseled violence as a means to the settle- 
ment of any dispute. On the other hand, he has never 
compromised with a principle that he held to be right 
and just, but he has said again and again that if those 
principles were right and were just they would be ac- 
cepted through the enlightened reason of mankind. To 
force them upon people not ready or willing to accept 
them would be to defeat the principle itself. That has 
been his stand on every public question, and not once 
has he deviated from it. 

Eugene was devoted to his father and mother, as 
were all the children who affectionately called them 
*“Dandy’’ and ‘‘Daisy.’’ There were no jealousies or 
eross currents of petty feelings in the family circle. 
Love, one for another, was not only felt, but expressed 
in acts of service and of sacrifice. Mrs. Debs died April 


mt 
112 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


29, 1906, and the elder Debs followed her soon after- 
wards—November 27, 1906. 

On the occasion of the golden wedding anniversary of 
his parents at Terre Haute, September 13, 1899, Eugene 
Debs, surrounded by his brothers and sisters, and their 
husbands, wives and children paid a tribute to his 
mother and father in word pictures that-mark him 
forever a poet and artist, a man with a woman’s heart, 
a son with a grateful soul. This was the picture he 
painted: 

‘*The celebraticn of a Golden Wedding is a rare oc- 
currence in the history of families; only to the favored 


few is such a blessing vouchsafed. It is an occasion when — 


nuptial vows pledged at Hymen’s altar take on inex- 
pressible sacredness. A far distant day is recalled when 
‘two souls with but a single thought’ and two loving 
hearts that ‘beat as one’ courageously and confidently 
entered upon the voyage of matrimony. 

‘*. . . In faney’s eve we see their beautiful and vine- 
clad France; we see them in the bloom and strength 
of youth, standing at the altar and pledging to each 
other unchanging fidelity in storm and shine, ready to 
meet the future as the days unfolded their duties, their 
opportunities, their tasks and trials, sustamed by a 
faith and hope which cheered them on their pilgrimage 
through all their married days. 

**. . . Love has been their guiding star; no cloud 
ever obscured it; and the darker the day of adversity 


the brighter shone their love which bathed their home - 


in its mellow, cheering light. 

*“In celebrating this Golden Wedding Anniversary, 
all the haleyon days of our lives are ineluded and there 
come to us messages from the past, under the sea and 
over the land, burdened with the aroma of violets and 
roses, caught from the flower gardens of memory, 
planted in youth and blooming in perennial beauty of 
old age. 


; 
: 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 113 


“<The serenity, the rare loveliness of this scene create 
emotions which no words, however fitly chosen, can ex- 
press. I can but say in the name of my sisters and 
my brothers and those younger in the family bonds of 
allegiance to our father—the patriarch of these sons and 
daughters—that we tender him our warmest congratula- 
tions upon this rare occasion. When we greet him our 
- hearts are in our hands; when we kiss his time-furrowed 
cheeks our hearts are on our lips, and when we con- 
eratulate him upon this, his golden wedding anniversary, 
our hearts are in our words. 

“*., . There are two words in our language forever 
sacred to memory—Mother and Home! MHome, the 
heaven upon earth, and mother its presiding angel. To 
us, children, here to-day, mother and home have realized 
all the longing, yearning aspirations of our souls, and 
now, in this blissful presence, we quaff to our mother 
cups full and overflowing with the divine nectar of our 
love. I need not attempt to recite her deeds of devotion. 
There is not a page of our memory, not a tablet of our 
hearts, that is not adorned and beautified by acts of her 
loving care, in which her heart and her hands, her eyes 
and her soul, in holy alliance, ministered to our happi- 
ness. There was never a time when there was not a 
song in her heart, sweeter than olian melody, wooing 
her children from folly to the blessedness, security, 
peace and contentment of home. Her children were her 
jewels in home’s shining circle, and if by the fiat of death 
a gem dropped away, the affectionate care it had received 
added soulful charm to her lullaby songs when at night 
she dismissed us and sent us to dreamland repose. 

«¢ . .We do not ask what the future has in store, 
we only know that we have the bride and groom in our 
presence, and that it is an inexpressible joy to pledge 
them anew our unfaltering devotion and our eternal 
love.’’ 

_ Hugene was always a ‘‘home boy,’’ and in his later 


114 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS © 


life no man enjoyed more than he his family circle. 
He never sought diversion in any social club op Jodge, 
always preferring to spend his evenings quiet ie home 
with his parents while they lived, and with his wife and 
intimates in his later years. Debs himself once men- 
tioned this attachment. He said: 

‘“My father and I were boon companions,.and I tell 
you, I miss it when I cannot have my Sunday evening 
talks with him. When I am out traveling, every day 
seems alike, but when Sunday evening comes, I in- 
variably feel something tugging at my heartstrings.’’ 

In many ways he has paid tribute to his mother. 
Once he remarked: 

“‘The dominant influence in my life has been my 

mother. Whatever of good there is in me I owe to 
_ her. Do you know, I care absolutely nothing for the 
| praise or condemnation of the world so long as my 
' wife and mother think I am in the right.’’ 
' After the death of his mother, Debs wrote a poem to 
her memory. It was one of the very few times, if not 
the only one, when he was moved to express himself 
in verse. The poem, entitled ‘‘Where Daisy Sleeps,”’ 
which he wrote in May, 1906, follows: 


The grass grows green 

Where Daisy sleeps; 

The Mulberry tree its vigil keeps 
Where Daisy sleeps. 


The winds blow soft 
Where Daisy sleeps; 
The modest, blue-eyed violet peeps 
Where Daisy sleeps. 


The birds sing sweet 

Where Daisy sleeps; 

The mournful willow bends and 
weeps 

Where Daisy sleeps. 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 115 


The sun shines bright 

Where Daisy sleeps; 

Each changing season sows and 
reaps ; 

Where Daisy sleeps. 

The flowers bloom fair 

Where Daisy sleeps; 

The evening shadow softly creeps 

Where Daisy sleeps. 


Our hearts beat true 

Where Daisy sleeps; 

And love its watch forever 
keeps 

Where Daisy sleeps. 


Eugene’s parents were very poor. The elder Debs 
was always scrupulously honorable in all his dealings. 
Eugene had been born in a frame dwelling at No. 447 
North Fourth street, Terre Haute. There were many 
children and it was a problem to support them; so 
Eugene’s school years were cut short with his gradua- 
tion from the Old Seminary School, in Terre Haute. 
Upon the site of that latter-day institution now stands 
the imposing structure of the Indiana State Normal 
School. In May, 1870, at the age of fourteen, Eugene 
began to work in the shops, and later as locomotive fire- 
man for the Terre Haute and Indianapolis Railway 
Company, now a part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. 
When Eugene took his lantern and left his home every 
night for the railroad yards his mother could not con- 
eeal her fears for the safety of the lad who must act 
as fireman on that unballasted and prairie railroad. 
Hugene’s pay envelope, which he turned over to his 
mother unopened, was decidedly slim. At first he re- 
ceived one dollar a day, and later, as fireman, was paid 
on a mileage basis. It was the tears and fears of his 
mother that caused him to abandon his railroad em- 
ployment in October, 1874, for a clerkship offered him 


\ 


116 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


by Herman Hulman, of the firm of Hulman and Cox, 
grocers, at Terre Haute. Eugene spent five years as a 
grocery clerk, relinquishing this employment in Sep- 
tember, 1879, when he was elected city clerk, an office 
which he held four years. 

Thirty-three years after Debs had left the employment 
of Hulman and Cox, he was a candidate for President 
of the United States on the Socialist ticket. His former 
employers publicly made the following statement, among 
other testimonials, to the voters of the nation concerning 
Debs: 

*‘Terre Haute, Ind., July 6, 1912. 

‘‘In response to your request for an expression from 
us of our opinion of Mr. Eugene V. Debs, we wish to 
say that we have intimately known Mr. Debs for more 
than forty years; and for five years of thig time he 
was in our employ. 

‘“We consider Mr. Debs unselfish and generous- 
hearted ; a man whose life has been devoted to helpful 
service to his fellow-men. His chief delight seems to be 
to serve others. 

‘In all business transactions between us we have 
found him to be honorable and upright—a man of strict 
honesty and integrity, and devoid of the desire to over- 
reach or take advantage or deal unjustly with others. 

**As a public man he has had many opportunities to 
‘feather his nest,’ but he has uniformly refused to do so. 


‘“No man who knows him as we do could ever suspect — 


him of using any public trust for private gain. 
‘‘Many years of close acquaintance have revealed his 
many fine qualities to us, his thorough reliability, his 
moral uprightness, his deep sincerity, his honesty of 
purpose and his rich endowment of mind and heart.”’ 
We might pause here a moment to go back to the 
reference in the Hulman letter that Debs has uniformly 
refused to ‘‘feather his nest.’’ It is doubtful if any 


4 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS = 117 


man in America has had more opportunities thrust in 
his way to capitalize his talents than Debs. 

He has been blind to all glitter of gold, and deaf to 
the tinkle of silver. He could have been a very rich 
man, either in a public or private way, had he deigned 
to use his silver tongue for the gathering of gold dollars. 
Instead, he has given all and received little. He has 
given to the poor even when he did not actually have 
it to give, but borrowed. Debs is a very poor man in 
the material sense. All of their lives, he and his devoted 
brother Theodore, who has managed his four presiden- 
tial campaigns and his lecture tours, have struggled in 
a hand-to-mouth way to make ends meet. A number 
of years ago there was an article published in The 
Twentieth Century Magazime, which has since ceased to 
exist, entitled ‘‘The Personal Side of Eugene V. Debs.’’ 
In the article appeared a picture of the old shack of a 
house in which he was born, and also the picture of the 
modern house which he now maintains as his home, at 
451 North Eighth street. This article brought forth a 
number of editorals from reactionary and anti-labor 
newspapers, seeking to prove that Debs’s preaching was 
not practiced by him, simply because he was born in a 
shack and now dared to live in a modern dwelling. 

George Bicknell, poet, artist and craftsman, and for 
some while Chautauqua manager, once was instrumental 
in having a Chautauqua Bureau offer Debs twenty dates 
during one month at $150 each. Debs declined the 
offer, preferring to work in the interests of labor for a 
trifle more than his traveling expenses. 

Upon one of my visits to him in prison, Debs spoke 
_ of having received a deed to a house and lot bequeathed 
to him by a woman in California, whom he did not know 
by name and had never to his knowledge seen. The 
deed had been properly affixed by the executors of the 
dead woman’s estate, and the property was ready for his 

use or disposal. Debs had, just a few days before, sent 


- 


118 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


the deed to his brother Theodore, at Terre Haute, in- 
structing him to have a lawyer arrange for the transferal 
of the property to the Socialist Party’s branch in the 
vicinity of the property so his comrades might have use 
of it as their headquarters and club-rooms. There are 
incidents of this nature, too numerous to mention, show- 
ing how Debs has resolutely set his face against any 
money-making enterprise, or any scheme that would 
have enriched himself financially. 

Debs’s first step into the organized labor movement 
was taken when, on the evening of February 27, 1875, 
the local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire- 
men was organized at Terre Haute. He had organized 
the Brotherhood of Railroad Brakemen, now the Brother- 
hood of Railway Trainmen; he had helped to organize 
the Switchmen’s Mutual Aid Association, the Brother- 
hood of Railway Carmen, the Order of Railway Telegra- 
phers, and other labor unions. It was at the Buffalo Con- 
vention, in 1878, that he was first recognized as a labor 
leader of force and intellect, for the convention made 
him associate editor of the Firemen’s Magazine. In 
July, 1880, he was appointed Grand Secretary and 
Treasurer, and editor and manager of the Firemen’s 
Magazine. He served in the former capacity until Feb- 
ruary, 1893, and in the latter capacity until September, 
1894, 

We are told by Stephen Marion Reynolds, in his 


sketch of Debs’s life, that when Debs took charge of the - 


affairs of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen ‘‘the 
order had only sixty lodges and $6,000 debt. In a 
short time he had been able to add 226 lodges and had 
wiped out the debt. When he decided to resign he was 
receiving $4,000 per year. It was at the Cincinnati 
Convention, 1892, he tendered his resignation, which 
was unanimously refused; he was unanimously re- 
elected to all the offices previously held. He again 
tendered his resignation and insisted upon its accept- 


if 
‘ 
; 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 119 


ance, with the frank statement that ‘‘organization”’ 
should be broad enough to embrace all the workers, and 
that he desired and proposed to give all his energy to 
the building up of such an organization.. The conven- 
tion unanimously voted to give him, as a mark of appre- 
ciation, $2,000 for a trip to Europe, for rest and en- 
joyment; this he declined.”’ 

The true motives that impelled Debs to relinquish the 
offices he held with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire- 
men'are best stated by him in his own words uttered at 
the time: 

**T do this because it pleases me, and there is nothing 
I would not do, so far as human effort goes, to advance 
any movement designed to reach and rescue perishing 
humanity. I have a heart for others and that is why I 
am in this work. When I see suffering about me, I my- 
self suffer, and so when I put forth my efforts to relieve 
others, I am-+simply working for myself. I do not con- 
sider that I have made any sacrifice mpc no man 
does, unless he violates his conscience.’ 


In June, 1893, Debs, with the assistance of a few 
others organized the American Railway Union, at- 


Chicago. His salary dropped from $4,000 a year, which 
he received from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fire- 
men, to $75 a month from the A. R. U. During the last 
two years of the American Railway Union’s existence 
Debs drew no salary at all. Of his activities in the 
A. R. U. we shall deal at length in the succeeding chap- 


ter, for they mark one of the most important epochs in. 
his career, including, as they do, the great railroad. 


strike of 1894, the Pullman strike in the same period, 
his trial for murder, treason and conspiracy, and his 
subsequent imprisonment at Woodstock Jail, ‘Tllinois. 
Debs furnishes us with an illuminative and vigorous 
picture of those early days in the labor movement. He 
had been admitted as a charter member of the Brother- 
hood of Locomotive Firemen when it was organized in 


120 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Terre Haute in 1875 by Joshua A. Leach, then Grand 
Master. Debs was at once chosen secretary. 

***Old Josh Leach,’ as he was affectionately called, 
a typical locomotive fireman of his day,’’ Debs wrote 
years later, ‘‘was the founder of the brotherhood, and 
I was instantly attracted by his rugged honesty, simple 
manner and homely speech. How well I remeniber feel- 
ing his large, rough hand on my shoulder, the kindly 
eye of an elder brother searching my own as he gently 
said, ‘My boy, you’re a little young, but I believe you’re 
in earnest and will make your mark in the brotherhood.’ 
Of course, I assured him that I would do my best. What 
he really thought at the time flattered my boyish vanity 
not a little when I heard of it. He was attending a 
meeting at St. Louis some months later, and in the 
course of his remarks said: ‘I put a tow-headed boy in 
the brotherhood at Terre Haute not long ago, and some 
day he will be at the head of it.’ 

“‘The years have played their pranks with ‘Old Josh’ 
and the rest of us. When last we met, not long ago, and 
I pressed his good right hand, I observed that he was 
crowned with the frost that never melts. 

‘“My first step was thus taken’in organized labor and 
a new influence fired my ambition and changed the whole 
current of my career. I was filled with enthusiasm and 
my blood fairly leaped in my veins. Day and night I 


worked for the brotherhood. To see its watchfires glow © 


and observe the increase of its sturdy members were the 
sunshine and shower of my life. To attend the ‘meeting’ 


was my supreme joy, and for ten years I was not once 


absent when the faithful assembled. 


‘¢. . . With all the fire of youth I entered upon the 


crusade which seemed to fairly glitter with possibilities. 
For eighteen hours at a stretch I was glued to my desk, 
reeling off the answers to my many correspondents. Day 
and night were one. Sleep was time wasted. Oh, what 
days! And what quenchless zeal and consuming vanity! 


{ 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 121 


All the firemen everywhere—and they were all the world 
—were straining: 
*<¢To eatch the beat 
On my tramping feet.’ 

‘‘My grip was always packed; and I was darting in 
all directions. To tramp through a railroad yard in 
the rain, snow or sleet half the night, or till daybreak, or 
to be ordered out of the roundhouse for being an ‘agita- 
tor,’ or put off a train, sometimes passenger, more often 
freight, while attempting to deadhead over the division, 
were all in the program, and served to whet the appe- 
tite to conquer. 

*“One night in mid-winter at Elmira, N. Y., a conduc- 
tor on the Erie kindly dropped me off in a snowbank, and 
as I clambered to the top I ran into the arms of a police- 
man, who heard my story and on the spot became my 
friend. 

“*T rode on the engines over mountain and plain, slept 
in the cabooses and bunks, and was fed from their pails 
by the swarthy stokers who still nestle close to my heart, 
and will until it is cold and still. 

**. , . And so I was spurred on in the work of organ- 
izing, not the firemen merely, but the brakemen, switch- 
men, telegraphers, shop men, track-hands, all of them 
in fact, and as I had now become known as an organizer, 
the calls came from all sides and there are but few 
trades I have not helped to organize and less still in 
whose strikes I have not at some time had a hand.’’ 

Debs has steadfastly disclaimed being a ‘“‘labor lead- . 
er.’ Several years ago he spoke these words to an 
audience of laboring people: 

*‘T am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to 
follow me or any one else. If you are looking for a 
Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you 
will stay right where you are. I would not lead you 
into this promised land if I could, because if I could 
lead you in, some one else would lead you out. You 


aN 


122°: DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


must use your heads as well as your hands, and get 
yourselves out of your present condition; as it is now the 
capitalists use your heads and your hands.’ 

It has been his pride that he has remained in the ranks 


¢ of the workers, sharing with them their few joys and — 


their many sorrows and setbacks. A man who steps 
out of the ranks and becomes a leader, especially in the 
labor movement, often loses psychological and spiritual 
connection with those from whose ranks he has emerged, 
and becomes, in fact, imbued with viewpoints and ideas 
alien to the progress of labor. The history of the 
American labor movement, and doubtless the same could 
be said of the labor movements of other countries, has 
been replete with instances of ‘‘leaders’’ who have risen 
to power over the backs of the workers, sometimes by the 
choice of the latter and sometimes by the cunning of the 
ambitious ones, only to play into the hands of political, 
industrial and economic reactionary forces whose sys- 
tem of handling the workers is inimical to their social 
progress. Since this has been so in almost every move- 
ment down the long winding track of the ages it might 
be said to be ‘‘natural’’; but whether it is or not, Debs 
has constantly cautioned the workers, wherever he has 
spoken to them, against being led by the Moseses who 
may, or may not have, their own axes to grind on the 
stones that the workers have dug and polished. 

It was in 1878 that Debs made his first political 
speech, advocating the principles of the Democratic 
Party. Almost immediately after that oration he was 
tendered the nomination for a seat in Congress and de- 
clined it. His acceptance at that time would have been 
tantamount to his election. That is what he meant when 
he said in his speech before Judge Westenhaver in Cleve- 
land in 1918 before sentence was passed upon him: ‘‘I 
could have been in Congress long ago. I have preferred 
to go to prison. The choice has been deliberately made. 
I could not have done otherwise. I have no regrets.’ 


i —— 3 
Se a ee er ee 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS = 123 


Determined to thrust political honors upon him, the 
Democratic Party of Indiana nominated him for a seat 
in the State Legislature in 1885 and he was elected. It 
was his avowed purpose to seek to obtain for the working 
class in general, and the railroad employees in particu- 
lar, much-needed legislation for their benefit. In the 
same year, on June 9th, he was married to Katherine 
Metzel. Mrs. Debs was born in Pittsburgh, but her 
parents were of Kentucky. Few women have sacrificed 
their own interests to their husband’s ideals and work 
as Mrs. Debs has throughout all of these years. Upon 
all occasions when the labor movement or the Socialist 
Party have claimed him for national tours or separate 
engagements she has yielded cheerfully to their demands, 
always with the feeling that the world had more claim 
upon him than herself. In this spirit of understanding, 
sympathy and helpfulness, Debs has had to absent 
himself many times from his home and family ties for 
months at a stretch, returning sometimes for a few brief 
hours or a day, only to take up again a speaking cam- 
paign, or the bitterness of a strike. 

Mrs. Debs has for many years assisted Eugene with 
his vast correspondence, keeping his scrap-book up to 
date, filing his hundreds of books, papers and magazine 
articles in proper order so that they might be accessible 
to him at all times either for writing articles or as ref- 
erence for speeches. Although they have no children, 
both are passionately fond of youngsters, and sometimes 
they have kept for long periods the children of their 
immediate family, sometimes those of their neighbors, 
and once, about half a dozen years ago, Eugene and 
Mrs. Debs opened their home to a young girl whose life 
was almost ruined because of an unhappy experience 
in Terre Haute. Upon this occasion many newspapers 
throughout the country hurled their epithets at him for 
having ‘‘darkened his threshold with the shadow of a 
fallen woman.’’ These were the same journals that, 


-~ 


wad nse 


124 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


each Monday morning, print extracts from the sermons 
of noted preachers for the delectable palates of their 
readers. - 

When twenty-three years old, Debs met Wendell 
Phillips and Robert G. Ingersoll. Two years later, in 


/ 1880, he met Susan B. Anthony. From these early 


meetings with those rebellious, agnostic and~pioneer 
spirits grew friendly attachments which endured 
throughout the life time of all three. The great ora- 
torical powers of Ingersoll and Phillips moved and in- 
spired Debs as nothing else had done up to that time. 
To the very end of Colonel Ingersoll’s life he kept up 
a steady correspondence with him upon all vital ques- 
tions and was aided by Ingersoll’s suggestions. In 
those fallow years Debs was reading and studying, try- 
ing as best he could to make up for the lack of a decent 
education. 

He was a live and an aggressive member of the Occi- 
dental Literary Club in Terre Haute, of which he was 
one of the founders. He frequently took the floor in 
debate with older members, and made speeches under 
the club’s auspices to ‘‘outsiders’’ who might deign to 
‘‘drop in.’? He was always attracted to persons who 
stood out because of their principles from the apathetic 
multitudes. He delights in recalling snatches of con- 
versation he has had with those lonely vanguards of 
movements, ideas and philosophies which one day may 
be accepted by the people. Once he referred to his talk 
with Wendell Phillips: 

‘* “Debs, the world will never know with what bitter 
and relentless persecution the early abolitionists had to 
contend,’’’ Debs quoted him as saying. ‘‘ Wendell 
Phillips was a perfect aristocrat; a royal man, who in- 
stantly challenged respect and admiration. Wendell 
Phillips was treated as if he had been the worst felon 
on earth. They went to his house to mob him, and 


‘ 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 125 


why? Because he protested against sending a fugitive 
Negro back into the hell of slavery.’’ 

In i880 he persuaded Susan B. Anthony to come to 
Terre Haute to speak at a series of meetings on the 
question of Woman’s Suffrage. 

“‘T can never forget the first time I met her,’’ he 
wrote some years ago. ‘““She impressed me as being a 
wonderfully strong character, self-reliant, thoroughly in 
earnest, and utterly indifferent to criticism. There was 
never a time in my life when I was opposed to the equal 
suffrage of the sexes. I could never understand why 
Woman was denied any right or opportunity that man 
enjoyed. Quite early, therefore, I was attracted to the 
woman suffrage movement.’’ 

Debs became determined, with the aid of Mrs. Ida 
Husted Harper, who afterward became Miss Anthony’s 
biographer, to have the pioneer suffragist speak at Terre 
Haute. He, with a few friends, met Miss Anthony at 
the railroad station, and walked with her to a hotel. 

“*T can still see the aversion so unfeelingly expressed 
for this magnificent woman. Even my friends were dis- 
gusted with me for piloting such ‘an undesirable citizen’ 
into the community. As we walked along the street I 
was painfully aware that Miss Anthony was an object 
of derision and contempt, and in my heart I resented 
it and later I had often to defend my position, which, 
of course, I was ready to do.’’ 

The meeting of Miss Anthony and her co-workers in 
Terre Haute were poorly attended, and all but barren 
of results. Debs says that people would not come to her 
meetings in those days even to satisfy their curiosity, 
“‘and it would not have required any great amount of 
egging-on to have excited the people to drive her from 
the community.”’ 

Debs did not see Miss Anthony again for a number 
of years, meeting her for the last time at Rochester, a 
short while before her death. 


126 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


‘“Her life work was done and her sun was setting,’’ 
he wrote. ‘‘How beautiful she seemed in the quiet 
serenity of her sunset! Twenty-five years before she 
drank to its dregs the bitter cup of persecution, but now 
she stood upon the heights, a sad smiling light in her 
sweet face, amidst the acclaims of her neighbors and 
the plaudits of the world.’’ vee 


Debs himself confesses that his powers of speech and 
writing were not due to education or to training, for he 
had but little of either. 

While a mere boy, firing a switch engine at night, he 
managed to attend a school half a day each day, sleep- 
ing the mornings and attending school afternoons. From 
his meager earnings he bought an encyclopedia on the 
installment plan, one volume each month, and began 
to read and study history and literature and to devote 
himself to grammar and composition. The revolutionary 
history of the United States and France stirred him 
deeply and their heroes and martyrs became his idols. 
Thomas Paine, he says, towered above them all, and a 
thousand times since he has found strength and in- 
spiration in the words of Paine, ‘‘These are the times 
that try men’s souls.’’ 

Of the intensiveness of his early studies he says that 


from the time he began to read with a serious mind, 


feeling keenly his lack of knowledge, he observed the 
structure and studied the composition of every para- 
graph and every sentence, and when one appeared strik- 
ing to him, because of its perfection of style or phrasing, 
he would read it a second time or perhaps commit it to 
memory. In all of his reading, and it has been volumi- 
nous and varied, Debs has chosen such subjects and 
topics as would assist him to imcrease his own powers 
of expression, both oral and written, and at the same 
time broaden and enlighten him. He has especially 


— 


—— - = 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 127 


stored away in his mind the histories of all the sufferings 
of all races. 

The schools he attended were primitive, and when he 
left them at the age of fourteen years he could scarcely 
write a grammatical sentence. He supplemented his 
elemental education in the ways indicated above, spe- 
cializing, however, in the orations of men who spoke in 
advance of their time. 

Patrick Henry’s revolutionary speech claimed his 
earliest attention, and Robert Emmet’s immortal ora- 
tion was a great favorite and moved him deeply. Drake’s 
** American F'lag’”’ stirred his blood, as did also Schiller’s 
“‘Burgschaft.”” He would often shut himself up in 
a room and recite the speeches of these heroes, always 
making sure that no one was listening. Everything that 
was revolutionary, that spoke for the toilers and gave 
voice to their unexpressed yearnings appealed to his 
imaginative mind and tender heart. He had a passion 
for Patrick Henry and his burning defiance of King » 
George inspired the first speech that Debs ever attempted 
to deliver in public. 

This was before the Occidental Literary Club in Terre 
Haute. Debs loves to tell now of how he shuddered 
upon facing the crowded little room, and how the cold 
sweat stood in beads upon his brow when he realized 
the awful plight he had invited upon himself and the 
utter hopelessness of escape. 

“The spectacle I made-of myself that evening will 
never be effaced from my memory, and the sympathetic 
assurances of my friends at the close of the exhibition 
did not relieve the keen sense of humiliation and shame 
I felt for the disgrace I had brought upon myself and 
my patron saint. The speech could not possibly have 
been worse and my mortification was complete. In my 
heart I hoped most earnestly that my hero’s spiritual 
ears were not attuned to the affairs of this earth, at least 
that evening. 


128 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Upon the invitation of the Department of Education 
of the University of Wisconsin, under whose direction 
there was being conducted an investigation of the sub- 
ject of ‘‘Distinguished Contemporary Orators and Lec- 
turers,’’ Debs contributed a paper entitled, ‘“The Secret 
of Efficient Expression.’’ 

Among other things he wrote: ae ee 

‘‘The secret of efficient expression in oratory—if se- 
eret it can be properly called—is in having something 


. efficient to express and being so filled with it that it ex- 
_ presses itself. The choice of words is not important 


since efficient expression, the result of efficient thinking, 
chooses its own words, molds and fashions its own sen- 
tences, and creates a diction suited to its own purposes. 

‘*., . No man ever made a great speech on a mean 
subject. Slavery never inspired an immortal thought or 
utterance. Selfishness is dead to every art. The love 
of truth and the passion to serve it light every torch 
of real eloquence. Had Ingersoll and Phillips devoted 
their lives to the practice of law for pay the divine fire? 
within them would have burned to ashes and they would 
have died in mediocrity. 

**. , . The highest there is in oratory is the highest 
there is in truth, in honesty, in morality. All the vir- 
tues combine in expressing themselves in beautiful words, 
poetic phrases, glowing periods, and moving eloquence. 

‘‘The loftiest peaks rise from the lowest depths and 
their shining summits glorify their hidden foundations. 
The highest eloquence springs from the lowliest sources 
and pleads trumpet-tongued for the children of the 
abyss.”’ 

We could not conclude this phase of the life of Debs, 


_ his early struggles and the backgrounds that bring his 


portrait out in relief, without a word about his brother, 


- Theodore Debs. In fact, any record of Eugene’s life 


that omits Theodore is, in the final estimate, woefully 
incomplete. 


j 
} 
; 


EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUNDS 129 


Some years ago, Eugene was tendered a notable re- 
ception by his friends and followers in Boston. After 
every speaker had toasted him, Horace Traubel arose 
and said that no one could really claim knowing Debs 
without knowing his brother Theodore and his wife. 
Debs instantly admitted the truth of this statement, and 
thanked the speaker for bringing it to the attention 
of the assemblage. Theodore has been a tireless worker, 
for a score of years and more, by Eugene’s side. He 
has had no public recognition or honors, and has never 
sought any. Only those who have come very close to 
Eugene know Theodore. Yet, behind almost every pub- 
lic career one finds the sacrificial hand and devoted 
heart. He has managed nearly every one of Eugene’s 
national lecture tours; he has cared for him after the 
strain and stress of public speaking, actually putting 
him to bed and giving him quiet and comfort in prep- 
aration for the next meeting. 

For a number of years Theodore Debs has found it 
necessary to maintain an office in Terre Haute for 
handling Eugene’s enormous mail. When Debs is ab- 
sent, Theodore answers all correspondents, and they are 
many. There has always existed a most complete com- 
munion and camaraderie between these two men, and 
to consider one without the other would be much like 
appraising the value of steam without considering the 
engine from which it issued. 


Oe te ah 


CHAPTER VII 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 


HE year 1893 was one of desolation and hopeless- 
ness for the wage earners of America. Due to the — 
financial panic of that year, which followed in the — 
train of bond issues floated by the government in an 
effort to make up the deficit due to declining federal 
revenues, the workers were thrown out of employment 
by tens of thousands when factories closed and bank- — 
rupteies were the order of the day. Those workers who 
had managed to keep their employment were receiving _ 
wages far blow a decent living standard. Industrial 
unrest and chaos was widespread. From distant and 
scattered points bands of unemployed workers were — 
marching across the country to join the main contin- — 
gent led by ‘‘General’’ Jacob Coxey headed for the 
national capital to seek redress for their grievances. — 
**General’’? Coxey was arrested at Washington. The 
railroad workers of the country, and those employed — 
by the Pullman Palace Car Company at South Chicago, — 
Tilinois, were affected by wage reductions; this created — 
a sullen temper among the toilers, not calculated to — 
produce confidence in or make for the stability of any 
government. ; 
The American Railway Union had been organized at 
Chicago in June, 1893, with Debs at the head of the © 
organization. This was one of the very first attempts im — 
‘this country at industrial unionism, or “‘One Big ~ 
Union,”’ a form of organization which has come to be — 
looked upon by a large number of workers in this and 
other countries aya most efficacious method of gaining — 
130 
. ; a 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 131 


quick results in the furtherance of their industrial and 
economic programs. To have thought of, much less © 
fathered, such a program in those days was tantamount 
to stamping one’s self an anarchist and inviting derision 
from the conservative press and public. 

On April 13, 1894, the strike was called on the Great 
Northern Railroad, and lasted eighteen days. On April 
16, members of the American Railway Union received a 
circular letter containing the scale of wages paid on 
the Great Northern lines, and showed that train dis- 
patchers were receiving $80 per month; freight con- 
’ ductors, $78; freight brakemen, $42 to $53; engineers, 
in some instances, $2.80 per day; inspectors, $35 per 
month; operators, $37.50 to $41.50; roundhousmen, $1 
per day; trackmen and truckmen, $1 per day. Paralleled 
with this scale of wages it was shown that in many rail- 
road centers, Butte, Montana, for instance, the cheapest 
board was $26 per month. The officials of the Great 
Northern soon learned of the circular sent to its em- 
ployees, and at once sent out a cipher dispatch to its 
superintendents and managers to remove all agitators 
and those known to be in sympathy with the A. R. U. 
Debs and his co-officials learned of this step taken by the 
railroad to break down the morale of the men, and the 
strike was speedily called. The railroad was given no 
time to prepare a counter offensive. From the Butte 
headquarters of the A. R. U. came the appeal to the 
men, couched in the following vein: 

‘We need your financial and moral support every- 
where. It is the greatest strike the world has ever seen. 
Give us your moral and financial support through the | 
general office at Chicago. Act quickly. See if we can- 
not break the chains that are being forged to reduce us, 
not only to slavery, but to starvation.”’ 

This appeal was all that was required to enlist the 
full and hearty support of the railroad workers. In 


132. DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


many ways they pledged to their leaders their loyalty 
to the A. R. U. 

On April 13, C. W. Case, general manager of the 
Great Northern lines, received the following letter from 
the A. R. U.: 

‘<SIR: 

“*T am instructed by your employees to say that unless 
the scale of wages and rules of classes of employees 
that were in effect prior to the first cut made August 1, 
1893, are restored and switchmen at Great Falls and 
Helena receive the same pay and schedules as at Butte 
and the management agrees to meet the representatives 
of the employees at Minot not later than ten days hence 
and formulate schedules accordingly, all classes of em- 
ployees will quit work at 12 o’clock noon this 13th day 
of April.’’ 

The late James J. Hill, owner of the Great Northern, 
and for many years before his death called ‘‘the empire 
builder’’ because of his vast railroad and financial in- 
terests in the northwest, was taken completely unawares. 
He instructed his managers to issue appeals to the men 
to remain loyal to the company and promised them 
rapid promotion if they would but turn their faces 
from the American Railway Union. On April 22, Debs, 
as president of the A. R. U., and George W. Howard, 
as vice-president, addressed a large meeting of railroad 
workers in St. Paul, where the general offices of the 
Great Northern were located and the home city of 
James J. Hill. As a result of that meeting the A. R. U. 
added 225 members. With imminent defeat staring him 
in the face, Mr. Hill called a conference of a few rail- 
road managers and labor leaders, the main theme of his 
talk to them being that he would offer arbitration. 


When Mr. Hill had concluded, a tall, gaunt man arose 


in the back of the council chamber. Moving slowly to the 
front where Mr. Hill sat the man began to speak. It 
was Debs. These were his words: 


; 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 133 


*‘Let me say that we do not accept the proposition. 
Efforts have been made ever since this trouble started to 
divide the organization and make trouble between the 
Union and the Brotherhoods. I understand such to be 
the policy of this company. 

*“Now, if the other organizations represent the men, 
let them set your wheels turning. Our men will not 
go back to work. My idea is that in raising the ques- 
tion of representation you have sought to evade the 
issue. We presented the terms upon which we would 
go to work. I am authorized to say that we will settle 
on these terms and on no others. This grievance is a 
universal grievance and all the men are united in this 
action. It will be to no avail to attempt to divide us 
into factions. If wages are not restored you can no 
longer have the service of the men. For the past week 
we have restrained the men from leaving your employ. 
Now, understand me that I am too much of a gentleman 
to make a threat and I do not mean this as anything 
but a plain statement of fact, but if there is no adjust- 
ment, those men will withdraw from your service in a 
body. They are convinced that their demand is a just 
one. If their request is not complied with they will, 
without regard to consequences, continue this struggle 
on the lines already laid down and fight it out with all 
the means at their command within the limits of the law. 
We understand your position; you understand ours. We 
will not withdraw from this conference. We shall be 
in the city several days and shall be glad to receive any 
further communications from you.”’ 

Failing completely to break the strike, reduce the 
morale of his employees, or to bargain with Debs for a 
compromised settlement, Mr. Hill next enlisted the aid 
of Knute Nelson, then governor of Minnesota, now 
United States Senator. Debs told me how Governor 
Nelson had sent for him to come to his executive of- 
fices. Debs went and was kept waiting in the office of 


Ge | 


ra 


134. DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


the Governor for many minutes, the Governor being pres- 
ent, giving no sign of knowing that Debs was in the 
room. 


Finally, Governor Nelson approached Debs with the — 


inquiry, ‘‘Do you wish to see me?’’ 

““No, Governor, I do not wish to see you, but you 
have indicated your wish to see me, and here I am,’” 
Debs replied. 

“So you are Eugene V. Debs,’’ Governor Nelson said, 
backing off and surveying the tall figure before him 
from head to foot. Debs said the Governor at once 
launched into a livid denunciation of him, employing 
frequent use of such epithets as ‘‘agitator,’’ ‘‘for- 
eigner,’’ ‘‘anarchist,’’ and so on, and wound up by 
harshly condemning him for ‘‘stirring up strife among 
peaceful and contented workingmen.’’ | 

‘“When he had finished,’’ Debs said, relating the story, 
‘‘his face was purple and I thought he might succumb 
to his anger. ‘Now, Governor, I have listened to all you 
have had to say,’ I remarked. ‘Are you through?’ Nel- 
son said he was. 


“© Well, then, for the first time in your life look into ~ 
the eyes of a man.’’’ Debs said he explained to the © 


Governor very briefly and tersely the issues of the strike 
and concluded with: 

‘*T have never in my life worn the collar of a pluto- 
erat, nor jumped like a jack when he pulled the string 
as you have done for Mr. Hill. Now, Governor, I know 
something about railroads, and you may, with my con- 


sent, take the B Line and go to hell.’ I left him standing - 


in the middle of his executive chamber,’’ Debs con- 
eluded. This little incident of the A. R. U. strike he 
related while going to Moundsville prison. 

‘ The Great Northern strike was won in eighteen days 
’ and not one drop of human blood was shed. It was the 


first signal victory achieved by the workers in this coun- 
try standing together, united, for their demands, and © 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 135 


the result heartened the forces of labor allied with other 
trades and revived their spirits which had been all but 
annihilated after the Haymarket riots and hangings 
seven years before. 

Debs returned to his home in Terre Haute on May 
3, 1894, and four thousand of his friends, neighbors, 
men, women and children, greeted him with shouts and 
music. He addressed his fellow citizens in a public park, 
near the Terre Haute House. A carriage had been 
provided for him to ride in from his home to the park, 
but Debs chose to walk amid the shouting throng. We 
shall set down here only the salient points of his address 
on that occasion: 

**., . The contest on the Great Northern system has 
no parallel in the history of railroad trouble. From the 
hour the strike commenced the men were united; they 
stood shoulder to shoulder—engineers, firemen, brake- 
men, conductors, switchmen, and even the trackmen and 
freight handlers, who are generally first to suifer, stood 
up as one man and asserted their manhood. 

“One of the remarkable features, very remarkable, in 
the contest, was the good feeling which prevailed during 
the eighteen days of the strike, and the good feeling 
lasted during the trying and anxious hours of arbitra- 
tion. I am glad, my friends, to be able to say to you to- 
night, that in all those eighteen days there was, from one 
end of the Great Northern road to the other, not a 
single drop of human blood spilled. The American 
spirit of fair play was uppermost in the minds of the 
manly men who were involved in the trouble, and their 
fight for wages was conducted without rowdyism or 
lawlessness. The reduction gn the Great Northern Rail- 
way was without cause. In resisting it, the employees | 
met solidly organized capital face to face, and man to 
man, and for eighteen days not a pound of freight was 
moved and not a wheel turned, with the exception of mail 
trains. As a result of this unification, this show of 


136 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


manliness and courage on the part of the employees, they 
gained 9714 per cent. of what they claimed as their 
rights. 
‘‘The arbitration of the differences was entrusted 
into the hands of fourteen representative business men 
of the Twin Cities, with Charles Pillsbury, the merchant 
miller prince, as chairman. The preliminaries leading 
up to that memorable meeting of arbitration covered 
many weary hours, but once in session and facing the 


great question of wages of thousands of men, these four- | 


teen men, all of whom were men of capital and employers 


of labor, reached a verdict in one hour, a verdict for the 


employees, by which $146,000 more money will monthly 
be distributed among the deserving wage earners than 
would have been had they not stood up for what they 
knew to be justly theirs. 

““My glory, my friends, consists in the gladness which 
I know will be brought into the little cottage homes 
of the humble trackmen among the hills in the west. I 
ean almost see the looks of gratitude on the faces of 
these men’s wives and little children. In all my life I 


have never felt so highly honored as I did when leaving ~ 


St. Paul on my way home. As our train pulled out of 
the yards the tokens of esteem, which I prize far more 
highly than all others, was in seeing the old trackmen, 
men whose frames were bent with years of grinding 
toil, who receive the pittance of from 80 cents to $1 a 
day, leaning on their shovels and lifting their hats to 
me in appreciation of my humble assistance in a cause 
which they believed had resulted in a betterment of their 
miserable existence. .. .”’ 

As so often happens in times of industrial strife, the 
demonstration of solidarity plus victory of the American 
Railway Union over the Great Northern system, brought 
renewed hope and inspiration to the workers in kindred 

and other trades, and two months after the Great North- 
’ ern strike the workers of the Pullman Palace Car Com- 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 137 


pany, at South Chicago, Illinois, now Pullman, went | 
out. This was in June, 1894. 

The American Railway Union officials, against the ° 
advice of Debs, decided again to call a strike in sym- ° 
pathy with the Pullman workers. ‘‘Debs believed that 
the abnormal and unfavorable conditions raised too 
many obstacles against success,’’ wrote James Oneal 
in the New York Call Magazine, July 7, 1918. ‘‘How- 
ever, the decision was against his advice and, taking his 
orders from the organization, he entered into the strug- 
gle with all his might. A number of railroads were tied 
up, others were partially crippled and the union achieved 
a larger measure of success than even the optimistic had 
dreamed of.’’ 

The second A. R. U. strike was so widespread and deyv-' 
astated the profits of the railroad owners to such an 
extent that the magnates of that period resolved to an- 
nihilate the American Railway Union root and branch 
and imprison its leaders. For this purpose the admin- 
istration of President Grover Cleveland was prevailed 
upon to begin prosecutions against Debs and his co- 
officials of the A. R. U. The federal courts were not . 
used for tnis purpose, however, until after President 
Cleveland had ordered out the federal troops to go to 
Chicago ‘‘to preserve order and protect private prop- 
erty.’’ As to the manner in which the United States 
soldiers of that period executed their orders from the 
federal government we shall .deal later, for the record 
has been fully set down in the minutes of the meetings 
of the commission appointed by President Cleveland in 
the summer of 1895 to investigate the causes of the Chi- 
cago strike. It appears that President Cleveland sent 
federal troops into Chicago primarily to see that the 
strikers did not interfere with the movement of mail 
trains or molest their crews. John P. Altgeld, then 
Governor of Illinois, protested to Washington against the 
sending of federal soldiers into Chicago and the state, 


138 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — 


claiming that the regular police force was sufficient and 
competent to handle whatever situation might arise. 
His protest was ignored. 

One of Debs’s most bitter opponents during the 


A. R. U. strike was John R. Walsh, then a powerful ~ 


Chicago banker and a rising figure in the financial 
world. He had acquired a newspaper, the Chicago 
Chronicle, to assist him in his ascendency toward the 
white light of fame. About ten or twelve years after 
the A. R. U. strike Walsh was sent to the Joliet Peni- 
tentiary, Illinois, as a bank wrecker. Petitions were cir- 
culated by his friends for his release from prison so 
that he might die on the outside. 

Judge Peter S. Grosscup, of the federal district court 
in Chicago, played an important role in the labor drama 
of that period. Judge W. W. Woods was ealled upon to 
sit in the ‘‘conspiracy trial’’ growing out of the Pullman 
strike, through which the Railroad Managers’ Associa- 


tion of that period hoped to send Debs to prison for — 


life. Some years ago Judge Woods died, ‘‘and the world 
now does not know that he ever lived,’’ said Debs in 
referring to him. 

E. St. John was chairman of the Railroad Managers’ 
Association of that period. It is said that he had a 
reputation of being one of the most powerful and suc- 
cessful of all the managers. He had claimed that the 
American Railway Union and Debs could not disturb 
the operation of the Rock [sland railroad, but when the 
strike came, the Rock Island was tied up tight from one 
end of the system to the other. 


Such were the characters who played their parts in © 
one of the greatest labor dramas this country has ever — 


known. Some are asleep to-day in graves forgotten 
by all save their immediate friends and relatives, while 


i, 


others have been reduced to the level of mediocrity and — 


impoteney. Since then, with every passing year, Hugene 
VY. Debs has mounted one rung after another of the lad- 


— oo 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 139 


der and to-day, even though he is in prison, he is by all 
odds one of the most powerful public figures in America. 

A special grand jury was impaneled in the United ’ 
States District Court of Northern Illinois on July 10, : 
1894. Judge Grosseup instructed the jury concerning 
the crimes of insurrection, conspiracy, ete., and the jury 
then set to work to consider whatever evidence might 
be brought to its attention concerning the activities of 
the American Railway Union and the Pullman strike. 
The late Richard Olney, then attorney general in Presi- 
dent Cleveland’s cabinet, had appointed Edwin Walker, 
an attorney in the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee 
and St. Paul Railroad, special counsel to assist in the 
prosecution of the Debs case. Mr. Walker and Attorney 
Wright, of the Rock Island system, were in attendance 
during the deliberations of the grand jury. 

K. M. Mulford, of the Western Union Telegraph Com- 
pany, was the sole witness examined by the grand jury, 
and he had produced for the jurors copies of telegrams 
sent from the headquarters of the A. R. U. and those 
received by the strikers’ officials. With no further evi- 
dence than these copies of telegrams, and without further 
preliminaries the grand jury returned indictments 
against four officials of the American Railway Union. 
These were Debs, president; George W. Howard, vice- 
president; Sylvester Kelliher, secretary; and L. W. 
Rogers, director and editor of the Railway Times. With- 
in ten minutes after Judge Grosscup received the in- 
dictments warrants were drawn for the arrest of Debs 
and his co-officials. A raid was promptly made upon 
the A. R. U. headquarters, all books, blank books, papers 
and correspondence of the union seized and other office 
paraphernalia confiscated by the raiders. The private 
mail of President Debs was seized but this was returned 
to him the following day by order of the court. 

The four men were re-arrested on July 17 for con- 
tempt of court on the petition of Special Counsel Walker,,. 


140 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


who alleged violation of the restraining injunction which — 
had been issued by Judges Grosseup and Woods. This 

_was in many respects the most astonishing injunction 

ever issued from a federal bench, since by it it became a 

crime to use persuasion on workingmen to join a strike. 

Neither President Debs nor his three colleagues would - 
consent to give bail and the four men were Sent-to Cook 

County Jail, in Chicago, where they remained until July 
23. On that day the A. R. U. lawyers moved for a dis- 

missal of the contempt proceedings, arguing that they 

were virtually for the same offense charged in the indict- 

ment, and that no man could be tried twice on the same 

charge. This motion was denied by the court, and the 

plea of the four defendants for a trial by a jury met 

with the same fate. Everything seemed to indicate that 

the cards were stacked. 

The directors of the A. R. U. were included in the 
proceedings later through the filing of a supplemental 
information in the contempt case. Originally sixty-nine 
persons were named in the omnibus indictments for 
conspiracy to obstruct the United States mails, but before 
the case went to trial the government attorneys entered 
a nolle pros. as to a number of defendants, leaving forty- 
five to answer to the charges against them on January 
8, 1895. There were seven indictments against Presi- 
dent Debs, Vice-President Howard and Editor Rogers, 
and three indictments each against the full board of 
directors of the American Railway Union. President 
Debs and his three colleagues were placed under $25,000 
bonds in all of the conspiracy indictments, with the ex- 
ception of the omnibus indictment. Debs and the 
A. R. U. officials were represented in court by S. S. 
Gregory and Clarence S. Darrow, and John J. Hanahan 
was represented by Thomas W. Harper, of Terre Haute. 
The government was represented by Edwin Walker, an 
attorney in the employ of the railroad managers, and 
named special attorney general by Attorney General 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 141 


Olney ; District Attorney J. C. Black, and his predeces- 
sor, T. E. Milchrist. 

Upon the opening of court Attorney Gregory objected 
to the presence of Mr. Walker as representative of the 
government on the ground that he was at that time in 
the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul 
railroad, but the court did not consider there was any- 
thing irregular or unusual about that. 


' MR. DARROW ARGUES FOR DEFENSE 


“Men have a right to strike,’’ said Attorney Milchrist 
in his opéning remarks to the jury, eight of whom were 
farmers, one an insurance agent, one a real estate 
dealer, one a painting and decorating contractor, and 
one a dealer in agricultural implements. 

“Tf this is so, it ends this case,’’ replied Mr. Darrow 
in his opening address. 

Darrow argued that there was a statute which made 
the obstruction of a mail car punishable by a fine of 
$100, yet ‘‘in order to make felons of honest men, who 
never had a criminal thought, they passed by that 
statute to seize on one that makes conspiracy to obstruct 
the mails a crime punishable by imprisonment in the 
penitentiary. To hound these men into the penitentiary 
is their purpose, yet they call this respect for law. Con- 
spiracy from the days of tyranny in England down to 
the day the General Managers’ Association used it as a 
club has been the favorite weapon of every tyrant. It is 
an effort to punish the crime of thought. If the govern- 
ment does not, we shall try to get the General Managers 
here to tell what they know about it.... 

‘“These defendants published to all the world what 
they were doing, and in the midst of a widespread 
strike they were never so busy but that they found 
time to counsel against violence. For this they are 
brought into a court by an organization which uses 


142 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS © 


the government as a cloak to conceal its infamous pur- 
poses.”’ 

Hundreds of telegrams, all signed by Debs, were placed 
in evidence, and they showed plainly that Debs had 
cautioned the various A. R. U. delegates and organizers 
on the different railroad lines against the use of violence 
in any form. 

Following is a copy of one of the jake eee read to 
the jury and which became a part of the record: 

‘‘July 16, 1894. 
“‘C. S. McAvuirre, Wisconsin. 

‘“We have assurances that within 48 hours every 
labor organization will come to our rescue. The tide 
is on and the men are acquitting themselves likes heroes. 
Here and there one weakens, but our cause is strength- 
ened by others going out in their places. Every true 
man must go out and remain out until the fight is over; 
there must be no half-way ground. Our cause is gaining 
ground daily and our success is only a question of a 
few days. Don’t falter in this hour but proclaim your 
manhood. Labor must win now or never. Our victory 
will be certain and complete. Whatever happens don’t 
give any credence to rumors and newspaper reports. 

“*B. V. Dess.”’ 

It was admitted that copies of the telegram just quoted 
were sent to forty points. After the federal troops had 
peen sent into the strike zones Debs sponsored telegrams 
to be sent to his heutenants in various parts of the coun- 
try like the following: 

‘To call out the troops was an old method for intimi- 
‘dation. Commit no violence. Have every man stand pat. 
Troops cannot moye trains. Not scabs enough in the 
world to fill places, and more help accruing hourly.’’ 

There were more than 9,000 telegrams sent out by 
the A. R. U. officials during the strike, but not more 
than 150 were read to the jury. When the most im- 
portant of these messages had been entered upon the 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 143 


record the government put on the witness stand B. 
Thomas, president of the Chicago and Western Indiana 
Railway company. He testified as to the formation of © 
the General Managers’ Association, stating that it was 
organized April 20, 1886, and that its purpose was to 
consider matters relating to railroad management and 
wages. Mr. Thomas admitted that the managers had 
agreed to act aS a unit in resisting petitions from the 
railroad employees for increases in wages. He further 
admitted that a number of agencies had been established 
at strategic points in the country where men could be 
quickly assembled to take the places of strikers. The 
expenses of the association were apportioned among the 
several railway systems that supported it, he testified. 

When Mr. Thomas had completed his testimony Mr. 
Darrow read to the jury from the minutes of a meeting 
of the Association on August 31, 1893, that a general 
combination of railroad managers throughout the coun- 
try was highly desirable, and a committee of five was 
named to carry this idea into effect. The object of this 
combination, the minutes stated, was to regulate wages 
and make them uniform on the various competitive rail- 
road systems. 

On September 21, 1893, the Association met again 
and passed a resolution regretting that it had become 
necessary for the railroad companies to reduce the wages 
of their employees generally. Mr. Darrow likewise read 
the above minute to the jury. 

On February 6, 1895, there was an air of expectancy 
in the courtroom when Debs was called to take the wit- 
ness stand. He told briefly of his early life, the forma- 
tion of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, and 
stated that more than four million dollars had passed 
through his hands while he was secretary and treasurer 
of the organization. Then he followed with a brief 
history of the labor union development of railway em- 
ployees, and of his joining the American Railway Union 


? 
I 


144 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


when it was founded in 1893. Asked by government 
counsel what the object of the A. R. U. was, Debs re- 
plied: 

“‘A unification of all railroad employees for their 
mutual benefit and protection.’’ 

He stated that with the concentration of the smaller 
railroads into the larger ones, which had--been taking 
place for twenty years, and the subsequent gradual re- 
duction of wages of the men in all departments, it was 
the only logical step when they decided to organize them- 
selves into one union that would embrace and include 
them all, as it had been demonstrated that the men 
. could gain little of permanent or tangible value when 
they were organized along craft or trade lines. Debs 
said that when the strike was called on the Great North- 
ern system the A. R. U. had a membership of 150,000. 

Prior to the advent of the American Railway Union, 
Debs testified, there were several railroad organizations, 
and that they had been at odds for a long time. The 
same classes of men were eligible to the various organi- 
zations, and the Railroad Managers’ Association seized 
upon this situation to play one organization against an- 
other, thus creating factionalism between the employees 
and keeping down the scale of wages. It was this con- 
dition that led to the formation of the ‘‘One Big Union’”’ 
of all railroad employees—the American Railway Union 
—which was, in fact, one of the first attempts in this 
country at industrial unionism instead of eraft organi- 
zation. The A. R. U., like the Western Federation of 
Miners, which latter organization came into being about 
the same time, was one of the forerunners of the In- 
dustrial Workers of the World, whose hundred and more 
leaders and organizers are now in Leavenworth Federal 
Prison and other penal institutions for violation of the 
Espionage Law, the very same statute upon which Debs 
was convicted and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. 

Debs first learned of the strike conditions at Pullman, 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 145 


he testified, when he returned from St. Paul to his home 
in Terre Haute in May, 1894. Asked if the strike was 
brought on by his advice he replied: 

*“No, it was done contrary to my advice. I first went 
to Pullman on the 14th of May, after the strike occurred, 
and stayed thefe part of that day and evening. I went 
again on May 18th.”’ Debs explained that he had in- 
vestigated the conditions at Pullman by talking with 
the workers and their families, and other sources. He 
also talked with the Rev. Mr. Carwardine, who had held 
a pulpit in Pullman for three years, and who said he 
knew at first hand of the oppressive industrial condi- 
tions under which the men toiled. 

“The result of the investigation was that I came to the 
zonclusion that the Pullman company was in the wrong; 
that wages had been unjustifiably reduced below the 
living point and that rents were much too high in com- 
parison with what was charged for the same class of 
dwellings elsewhere.’’ At this point Judge Grosscup 
would not permit Debs to tell the jury of the actual 
living conditions of the people at Pullman. 

The convention of the A. R. U. was held in Chicago 
on June 12, 1894, he said, and was attended by 425 
delegates from nearly every state in the country. The 
meetings were open and newspaper reporters were pres- 
ent at all sessions, except one executive session, which 
was called to consider the financial affairs of the Union. 
This convention voted $2,000 of the Union’s funds to 
be paid over to the Relief Committee at Pullman, and 
the money was used to assist the distressed families of 
the Pullman strikers. 

There were delegates at this convention, Debs said, 
who spoke of the situation at Pullman, and finally a mo- 
tion was made to deelare a boycott against the Pullman 
cars and instructing railway men against hauling them. 
Debs testified that as chairman of the convention he de- 
clined to entertain the motion, as he believed the Pull- 


.146 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


q 


man situation was a very serious matter, and that no 


action should be taken hastily or until every means 
' toward a decent settlement had been exhausted. He 
urged the convention to appoint a committee to try to 


——— eo 


settle the Pullman strike by arbitration and thus avert 
a general strike that would involve the A. R. U. That 


committee was appointed and on June 16 it reported to 
_ the A. R. U. officials that the Pullman company posi- 


tively refused to confer with any members of the 
A. R. U., and would seek to adjust its troubles with the © 
Pullman employees themselves as individuals. They ab- 


solutely declined to recognize a union of their men. 


Another committee, composed entirely of Pullman ~ 


employees, called on Mr. Wicks, vice-president of the 
¢ Pullman Company, and they reported back to the 
/ strikers that Mr. Wicks had told them the company 


‘‘had nothing to arbitrate,’’ and that he regarded the 


strikers ‘‘as men on the sidewalk, so far as their rela- 
tions with the Pullman Company was concerned.’’ 

Continuing his testimony, Debs said that a few days 
later Rev. Mr. Carwardine addressed the A. R. U. Con- 
vention, told of the living conditions of the workers at 
Pullman, and pleaded with the convention to ‘‘act 
quickly in the name of God and humanity.”’ 

The convention immediately considered a resolution to 
declare a boycott against Pullman ears, and appointed 
a committee to notify the Pullman Company that 
unless they agreed to arbitrate their differences with 
their men the boycott would become effective at noon 
of June 26th. The committee visited Mr. Wicks, and 
reported that he was still obdurate. Debs was asked if 
he had ever counseled violence or lawlessness on the 
part of strikers or workingmen. 

‘‘Never in my life have I broken the law or advised 
others to do so,’’ he replied. 

When Debs had concluded his testimony, United States 
Deputy Marshal Jones reported to the court that he had 


LABOR, UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 147 


made diligent but futile search for George M. Pullman. 
““Nobody seems to know the exact whereabouts of that 
gentleman,’’ were his words to the court. The judge 
then sent for Mr. Johnson, one of Mr. Pullman’s office 
subordinates. Mr. Johnson testified that he had taken 
Deputy Jones’s card into Mr. Sweet, private secretary 
to Mr. Pullman, who in turn had carried the card to the 
inner office of the magnate, returning in a few moments 
and saying that Mr. Pullman was not in. Mr. Johnson 
told the court that Mr. Pullman had arrived at his of- 
fice at the usual hour that morning. 

Later on, Debs, in one of his speeches, referred to the 
absence of Mr. Pullman as follows: 

“When the trials were in progress at Chicago Mr. 
George M. Pullman was summoned to give some testi- 
mony. Mr. Pullman attached his car to a New York 
train and went Hast, and in some way the papers got 
hold of the matter and made some publication about 
it, and the judge said that Mr. Pullman would be dealt 
with drastically. In a few days Mr. Pullman returned 
and he went into chambers, made a few personal ex- 
planations and that is the last we heard about it. Had 
it been myself I would have to go to jail. That is the 
difference. Only a little while ago Judge Henford cited 
Henry C. Payne, of the Northern Pacific, to appear be- 
fore him to answer certain charges, and he went to 
Europe.’’ 

Jennie Curtis followed Debs on the witness stand and 
testified that at the time the Pullman strike was called 
the employees in those car shops were indebted to the 
amount of $70,000 to Mr. Pullman for rent, and indi- 
cated that this money was owed to Mr. Pullman by his 
employees because the wages which he paid them were 
searcely adequate to enable them to purchase food and 
the bare necessities of life. 

Debs was recalled to the stand and admitted that on 
June 28 he had sent out a manifesto over his own signa- 


148 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


ture, copies of which were given to the newspapers and 
to the Associated Press, counseling peaceful conduct 
by the strikers and ordering a strict compliance with the 
laws. The manifesto concluded with: 

‘*A man who will violate law is against the interests 
of labor.”’ 

Counsel for the government asked Debs. what wages 
he received in 1875 as fireman: 

*‘T began at $1 a night,’’ he replied. ‘‘I was after- 
wards paid by the mile.’’ 

‘*Your salary as President of the American Railway 
Union still continues, does it not?’’ inquired Mr, Walker 
for the prosecution. 

‘‘No, sir; I cut it off myself last September,’’ Debs 
replied. 

‘‘The purpose of your Union was to get the control of 
all the railroad employees in the hands of the American 
Railway Union, was it not?’’ 

‘*Yes, sir; under the limitations of the constitution 
and by-laws.’’ 

Debs said that the Great Northern strike was a peace- 
ful one and that no intimidation had been used to bring 
new members into the fold. 

**You simply took possession of the road wad held it?’ 
asked Attorney Walker. 

‘‘No, sir; we simply went home and stayed there,’’ 
answered Debs, Government’s counsel asked Debs to 
explain the meaning of the word ‘‘strike.’’ Debs re- 
plied: 

‘‘A strike is a stoppage of work at a given time by 
men acting in Consent in order to redress some real or 
Tmaginaby erievance.’ 

‘‘Mr. Debs, will you define the meaning of the word 
“seab’?’’ 

‘A scab in labor unions means the same as atraitor to 

his country,’’ Debs replied. ‘‘It means a man who be- 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 149 


trays his fellowmen by taking their places when they 
go on a strike for a principle. It does not apply to 
non-union men who refuse to quit work.’’ 

Mr. Pullman was still absent on the following day, 
and one by one his private secretaries and other officials 
of his company mysteriously disappeared when deputy 
marshals were sent by the court to serve subpoenas upon 
them. Judge Grosscup appeared to be greatly chagrined 
over the disappearance of witnesses whom the defense 
desired should testify in the lawsuit. 

Not even the power and prestige of the United 
States district court was adequate to induce unwilling 
witnesses from the Pullman Company to appear before 
the defendants and their counsel and testify as to their 
dwn knowledge of the industrial and social causes that 
brought on the great strike of 1894. In the light of past > 
performances it now becomes apparent that the Rail- 
road Managers’ Association of that period did not desire 
to continue the trial, and one morning, when court had 
convened, Judge Grosscup announced as follows: 

““Owing to the sickness of a juror and the certificate 
of his physician that he will not be able to get out for 
two or three days, I think it will be necessary to adjourn 
the further taking of testimony in this ecase.’’ Debs 
and his co-defendants were astonished by this sudden 
turn of events, and their lawyers pleaded with the court 
to allow the lawsuit to proceed, but to no avail. Dis- 
trict Attorney Black asked that the court allow the case 
to continue with eleven jurors, but Judge Grosscup de- 
eided that this would make the whole proceedings in- 
valid. Clarence Darrow asked that a juror be selected 
to fill the place of the sick member and have read to 
him the whole record of the case as it had progressed 
up to that point. But arguments were unavailing. So, 
on February 12, 1895, Judge Grosscup discharged the 
jury and continued the Debs case until the first Mon- 


1 


150 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS | 


day in May. Debs was sorely disappointed. He and 
his fellow officials of the American Railway Union were 
confident of an acquittal at the hands of the jury, and 
this belief was strengthened by the fact that when court 
had adjourned that day the jurors made a rush for 
Debs, grasped his hand and cone him heartily : 
upon the stand he had taken. St 

The jurors shook hands with the judge, and then 
surrounded Debs and his fellow defendants and at- 
torneys. Mr. Walker and his associates for the prose- 
cution got a decidedly cool reception. 

Several of the jurors did not hesitate to tell Debs’ 
that when they went into the jury box they were all 
but convinced that he and his co-defendants were guilty 
of the charges named in the indictment, and that they 
thought a five-year term in the penitentiary might not 
be too severe punishment for them. But the evidence 
introduced by the government and the defense, coupled 
with the honesty and candor of Debs himself upon the 
witness stand had convinced all of them that they were 
witnessing one of the most atrocious ‘‘frame-ups’’ ever 
perpetrated by a corporation cloaking itself in the toga 
of a federal court. ; 

So far as the court records are concerned in the Debs 
case the juror is still sick. The case was not brought ” 
up in May, as scheduled, nor has it ever been brought up 
Since, and the indictments against Debs and his fellow © 
officials of the American Railway Union were never 
withdrawn. ‘ 

Debs was sentenced to serve six months in Woodstock ! 
Jail, Woodstock, Illinois, for contempt of court. He — 
puiilenea his sentence on November 22, 1895. a 

One week after the federal grand jury at Chicago had ¥ 
indicted him he received a telegram from his home as 
follows: P 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 151 


‘Terre Haute, Ind., July 18, 1894. 
Received at Chicago. 
To Eucene V. Dess. 
Stand by your principles, regardless of consequences. 
Your Mother and Father.’’ 

About the same time he received a telegram from 
Eugene Field, the Chicago poet and Indianian: 

*‘Dear Gene: I hear you are to be arrested. When 
that time comes you will need a friend. I want to be 
that friend. 

‘“HuGENE FIELp.’’ 

This simple note from the poet is among Debs’s most 
treasured possessions saved from that period of terror 
and turbulence. 

While Debs was serving his sentence at Woodstock 
Jail, messages and telegrams, books and papers of every 
description and kind poured into his cell in as great 
a volume as they came to him during the two months 
he was at Moundsville Prison in 1919. Every telegram 
and every message was one pledging love and devotion 
to him, and congratulating him for his fearlessness and 
courage in championing the cause of the workers. 

Some of the newspapers of that day seem to have been 
mildly fair in their editorial discussion of the Debs case. 
For instance, the Chicago Times, of February 13, 1895, 
printed the following editorial under the caption, ‘‘Shall 
Debs Be Tried Again?’’ 

‘Owing to the illness of one juror the conspiracy 
cases against Eugene V. Debs and his associates of the 
American Railway Union have come to a sudden stop. 
The propositions of the defense to continue the hearing 
of the case with eleven jurors, or to swear in a twelfth 
juror and proceed after the evidence already in had 
been read to him, were both opposed by counsel for the 
government and the railroads. As the matter now 

stands, a new jury will have to be impaneled and the 


152 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


whole thing gone over again, unless the Government de- 
cides to abandon the prosecution. 

“*It is exceedingly unfortunate that the present trial 
should have been interrupted in this unforeseen fash- 
ion. A judicial declaration upon the issues involved 
would have been of very decided value to all classes of 
society. As the evidence has been detailed day after 
day in the very full reports in the columns of the Times, 
the people have been able to gain a clearer and more 
exact idea of the incidents of the great strike than was 
possible in the moments of heated controversy last sum- 
mer. It does not seem like overstatement to say that 
there was every indication that the defense would be 
successful. The charge of conspiracy, had not, at the 
time of the abrupt termination of the case, been at all 
forcefully substantiated. 

‘‘TInterviews with the released jurors established the 
fact that they would have acquitted the defendants had 
the case been carried to its regular conclusion. It is 
-eredibly asserted that the prosecution has for some time 
apprehended such an outcome of the trial, and it was 
probably for this reason that the attorneys for the Gov- 
ernment exercised their undoubted right to Bene 
against continuing with an incomplete jury. 

‘‘In this situation the question arises whether the 
Government shall proceed further with this prosecution. 
Heavy expense is involved in it and it will consume 
much of the time of a court already overcrowded with 
business. It is just, too, to call attention to the fact 
that the defendants are poor men. The expenses of 
the defense have thus far been met by voluntary con- 
tributions from other poor men, who are in sympathy 
with the men on trial. There is obvious injustice in 
enlarging the financial burden by bringing these men 
again to trial. 

-  “*TIn the opinion of the Times enough has been done 
“ to maintain the dignity of the State in this matter. 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 153 


Further prosecution of Debs and his associates would | 
look like persecution. The Government would better ) 
abandon the case forthwith.’’ 

The matter of Mr. Pullman’s disappearance caused 
the Chicago Times to say editorially on February 8, 
1895: 

“‘Magnate Pullman is still missing. His whereabouts 
seem to give no concern to his immediate attendants, but 
Judge Grosscup of the United States Court is showing 
some anxiety to learn where he is and why it is that he 
has not been served with a process calling him into 
court. An examination of Magnate Pullman’s colored 
door-keeper made by the Judge personally disclosed 
that he saw the magnate enter his office Monday at 
10:30 o’clock, an hour after a deputy marshal called, 
but he has since mysteriously disappeared. 

““Why this assumption of right to inquire into the 
personal movements of so great a man as Mr. Pullman? 
Ought we not, rather, anxiously unite in efforts to ascer- 
tain whether he is entirely safe, for if Magnate Pull. 
man were to disappear into thin air, it is doubtful if the 
world would continue to revolve upon its axis and make 
its usual diurnal revolution. Human laws are made for 
the mass of mankind. Why should Magnate Pullman, 
who does not belong to the mass, but is a being apart, 
constructed of superior clay, be subjected to any such 
belittling regulation? Magnate Pullman keeps more 
bar-rooms in more states in the union than any grog 
shop seller and employs more male chamber-maids than 
any other magnate in the bed-house business. 

“The (Chicago) Tribune finds excuses for the mag- 
nate. It says: ‘It is not strange that he should be un- 
willing to go on the stand and be questioned by Mr. 
Darrow, Mr. Geeting (?) (Gregory) and the other law- 
yers for the defense. It is not pleasant for a person 
who is at the head of a great corporation, who has many 
subordinates and no superiors, and who is in the habit 


154 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


of giving orders instead of answering questions, to be 
interrogated by persons who are unfriendly to him, and 
who may put disagreeable inquiries which he has to reply 
to civilly.’ 

‘“That’s it. Mr. Pullman is superior to the Jaw. 
Like the king, he can do no wrong, and no processes 
can lie against him. The Tribune, howevér, we-are bound 
to say, weakens a little, for it adds: ‘Nevertheless, it is 
the duty of all men to appear in court when they are 
wanted there.’ 

“*. . . There was some music here last June and July. 
It was music that never should have been played if 
Magnate Pullman had been like the ordinary run of 
human beings, but, being altogether an extraordinary 
creature, he waved his baton and the band began to play, 
but, far from facing the musie which he himself had 
set in motion, he retired with a lawyer bodyguard to 
the East and viewed the concert from a distance of a 
thousand miles. Really, he had nothing to fear, for, as 
it turned out, not a single pane of glass in his marvelous 
town was broken by what he regarded as a fearful mob. 

‘‘The outcome of the present matter will be, of course, 
a demonstration that Magnate Pullman is a bigger man 
than the United States Court.’’ 

On January 1, 1895, the Ravlway Times, the organ of 
the American Railway Union, published the following 
notice: 

“‘The general offices of the American Railway Union 
and the Railway Times have been removed to Terre 
Haute, Indiana. The directors having been sentenced to 
prison, the change was made so that the work of the Or- 
der could be efficiently and economically done during 
their confinement. The work of organizing and equip- 
ping the A. R. U. will be pushed with unabated vigor. 
Insurance and secret work will be adopted as soon as it 
can be done under temporarily trying circumstances. 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 155 


** All correspondence should be addressed to Eugene 
V. Debs, Terre Haute, Indiana. 
‘‘Terre Haute, Ind., Jan. 1, 1895.”’ 


DEBS IN WOODSTOCK JAIL 


With Eugene Debs in jail, a number of newspapers 
printed the following story on January 9, 1895: 

““Woodstock, I1l—Eugene V. Debs, George Howard, 
Sylvester Kelliher, Louis W. Rogers, William E. Burns, 
James Hogan and Leroy Goodwin are confined in the 
McHenry County Jail. Last evening, as he sat in what 
Cook County prisoners would call a palace, Mr. Debs 
issued a manifesto to the American people, which con- 
tains the following: 

***Tn going to jail for participation in the late strike 
we have no apologies to make nor regrets to express. 

I would not change places with Judge Woods, and if 
it is expected that six months, or even six years, in jail 
will purge me of contempt, the punishment will fail of 
its purpose. 

***Candor compels me to characterize the whole pro- 
ceeding as infamous. It is not calculated to revive the 
rapidly failing confidence of the American people in the 
federal judiciary. There is not a scrap of testimony 
to show that one of us violated any law whatsoever. 
If we are guilty of conspiracy, why are we punished for 
contempt ? 

***T would a thousand times rather be accountable 
for the strike than for the decision. 

***We are, by chance, the mere instrumentalities in 
the evolutionary processes in operation through which 
industrial slavery is to be abolished and economic free- 
dom established. Then the starry banner will symbolize, 
as it was designed to symbolize, social, political, religious 
and economic emancipation from the thraldom of 
tyranny, oppression and degradation.’ ’’ 


156 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Eugene V. Debs entered Woodstock jail a fearless, 
courageous and candid man, who had a genius for lead- 
ership. It would be too moderate to say that he was 
extremely popular among the railroad workers and those 
employed in allied trades. But he had not yet acquired 
national prominence. His own personality had been 
submerged in the issues of the strike itself, and if the 
public regarded him at all in that period it was as a 
man who would soon be lost to view, and carrying for- 
ever upon his escutcheon the stigma of a prison sen- 
tence. Rarely does the public ever know the true char- 
acter of the man it has sent to prison. The federal 
judge who consigned Debs to Woodstock Jail for con- 
tempt of his court could not know that by his act he 
had set in motion all the latent spiritual powers of 
Debs, and had caused to sprout within him the seeds 
of greatness which, at every recurring opportunity and 
season, would blossom more and more. 

While Debs was in jail at Woodstock he wrote a 
series of very remarkable letters, one of which we shall 
quote in full here: 

‘*Woodstock, IIl., 
‘* August 29, 1895. 
‘Mr. Ep. H. Evrncer, 
‘‘Laber Day Committee, Terre Haute, Ind. 

‘‘Dear Sir and Brother:—I am in receipt of your es- 
teemed favor of the 19th inst., in which you say: ‘We 
have been unable to get a representative labor speaker 
for our Labor Day celebration and the committee ordered 
me to ask you to write us a letter to be read on the oc- 
casion.’ 

“*In responding to your request I am disposed to re- 
cite a page of what all Christendom proclaims ‘sacred 
history.’ 

“There existed some twenty-five hundred years ago 
a king clothed with absolute power, known as Darius, 
who ruled over the Medes and the Persians. He was 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 157 


not a usurper like William A. Woods, the United States 
Cireuit Judge. Darius was royal spawn. His right to 
rule was what kings then, as now, claimed to be a ‘di- 
vine right.’ All the people in Darius’ empire were 
slaves. The will of the king was absolute. What the 
king said was law, just as we now find in the United 
States of America that what a United States judge says 
is law. Darius, the Persian despot, could imprison at 
will; the same is true of Woods, the despot. There is 
absolutely no difference. Do I hear an exception? Al- 
low me to support my indictment by authority that 
passes current throughout the Republic. Only a few 
days ago the venerable Judge Trumbull, one of the 
most eminent jurists and statesmen America has ever 
produced, wrote these burning words: ‘The doctrine an- 
nounced by the Supreme Court in the Debs case, carried 
to its logical conclusion, places every citizen at the 
mercy of any prejudiced or malicious federal judge, who 
may think proper to imprison him.’ This states the 
case of the officers of the American Railway Union in 
a nutshell. They violated no law, they committed no \ 
erime, they have not been charged, nor indicted, nor | 
tried, and yet they were arbitrarily sentenced and thrust 
in jail and what has happened to them will happen to. 
others who dare protest against such inhumanity as 
the monster Pullman practiced upon his employees and 

their families. 

“‘More than twenty-five hundred years have passed 
to join the unnumbered centuries since Darius lived and 
reigned, and now in the United States we have about 
four score Darius despots, each of whom may at his 
will, whim or pleasure, imprison an American citizen— 
and this grim truth is up for debate on Labor Day. 

*‘Tt will be remembered that during the reign of 
Darius there was a gentleman by the name of Daniel 
whom the king delighted to honor. The only fault that 
eould be found with Daniel was that he would not wor- 


158 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS _ 


ship the Persian gods, but would, three times a day, 
go to his window, looking toward Jerusalem, and pray. 
This was his crime. It was enough. The Persians had 
a religion of their own. They had their gods of gold, 
brass, stone, clay, wood, anything from a mouse to a 
mountain, and they would not tolerate any other god. 
They had, in modern parlance, an ‘established church,’ 
- and as Daniel, like Christ, would not conform to the 
Persian religion, ‘the presidents of the kingdom, the 
governors and the princes, the counselors and the cap- 
tains,’ or as in these later days the corporations, the 
trusts, the syndicates and combines, concluded to get 
rid of Daniel and they persuaded Darius to issue an 
injunction that no man should ‘ask a petition of any God 
or man for thirty days save of thee, O King’—and the 
king, 4 la Woods, issued the decree. But Daniel, who 
was made of resisting stuff, disregarded the injunction - 
and still prayed as before to his God. Daniel was a 
hero. In the desert of despotism he stands forever: 


‘« (As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm: 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.’ 


“‘But the bigots triumph for a time. The king’s de- 
cree must stand, and Daniel, as a penalty for prayer, 
must be cast into the lion’s den and the bigots, the pluto- 
cratic pirates and parasites of that period, thought that 
would be the end of Daniel. They chuckled as in fancy 
they heard the lions break his bones and lap his blood. 
They slept well and dreamed of vietory. Not so with 
the king. He knew he had been guilty of an act of 
monstrous cruelty and in this the old Persian despot 
was superior to Woods. The king could not sleep and 
was so pained over his act that he forbade all festivities 
in his palace. In this he showed that he was not totally 
depraved. The king had a lurking idea that somehow 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 159 


\ 

Janiel would get out of the lion’s den unharmed and 
hat he would overcome the intrigues of those who had. 
onspired to destroy him. LEarly in the morning he 
rent to the mouth of the den. Daniel was safe. His 
tod, unlike the Supreme Court, having found Daniel 
anocent of all wrongdoing, locked the jaws of the lions 
nd Daniel stood before the king wearing the redemp- 
ion of truth, more royal than a princely diadem. Then 
he king who had been deceived by the enemies of Dan- 
21, the sycophants and the vermin of power, gave his 
rath free rein and had them east into the lion’s den 
yhere they were devoured by the ferocious beasts. 

““History repeats itself. I am not a Daniel, but I am 
1 jail, by the decree of the autocrat. I appealed from 
ne despot to a whole bench for justice, and the appeal 
fas unheeded. I and my associates were innocent. 
‘here was no stain of crime upon our record but neither 
nnocence nor constitution was of any avail. To placate 
he corporations, the money power, the implacable ene- 
1ies of labor, we were sent to prison and here alone, con- 
emplating the foul wrong inflicted upon me and my 
ssociate officials of the American Railway Union, with 
ay head and heart and hand nerved for the task, I write 
his letter to be read on Labor Day to friends and 
eighbors in the city of my birth. 

“Tt is not a wail of despondency nor of despair. 
‘he cause for which I have been deprived of my liberty 
yas just and I am thrice armed against all my enemies. 
'o bear punishment for one’s honest convictions is a 
lorious privilege and requires no high order of courage. 

“No judicial tyrant comes to my prison to inquire 
s to my health or my hopes, but one sovereign does 
ome by night and by day, with words of cheer. It is 
he sovereign people—the uncrowned but sceptered ruler 
f the realm. No day of my imprisonment has passed 
hat the bars and bolts and doors of the Woodstock 
Jail have not been bombarded by messages breathing 


160 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS © 


devotion to the cause of liberty and justice, and as I 
read and ponder these messages and as I grasp th 
hands of friends and catch the gleam of wrath in their 
defiant eyes and listen to their words of heroic courage, 
I find it no task to see the wrath of the sovereign people 
aroused and all opposition to the triumphant march : 
“ labor consigned to oblivion, and as an-earnest of this 
from every quarter come announcements that the Ameri- 
can Railway Union is growing in membership and 
strength, destined at an early day to be, as it deserves 
to be, an organization, which by precept, example, and 
principle will ultimately unify railroad labor in the 
United States and make it invincible. There is a mighty 
mustering of all the forces of labor throughout the 
country. Labor is uniting in one solid phalanx to secure 
justice for labor. When this time comes, and coming 
it is, peacefully, I hope, no judicial despot will dare to 
imprison an American citizen to please corporations. 
When this time comes, and coming it is as certain as 
rivers flow to the sea, Bullion and Boodle will not rule 
in Congress, in legislatures and in courts, and legisla- 
tors and judges and other public officers will not be 
controlled, as many of them are, by the money power. 
_There is to come a day, aye, a labor day, when from 
the center to the circumference of our mighty Republic, 
from the blooming groves of orange to waving fields of 
grain, from pinelands of Maine to the Pacifie Coast, the 
people shall be free, and it will come by the unified 
voice and vote of the farmer, the mechanic, and the 
laborer in every department of the country’s industries. 
‘‘T notice in your letter that you say: ‘We have been 
unable to get a representative labor speaker for our 
Labor Day celebration,’ and here let me say that om 
Labor Day all men who wear the badge of labor are 
“representative speakers’—not ‘orators,’ perhaps, as 
the term is accepted to mean, and yet orators in fact, 
from whose lips fall ‘thoughts that breathe and words 


o 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 161 


2at burn’; coming warm from the heart, they reach the 
eart and fan zeal in a great cause into a flame that 
weeps along like a prairie fire. It has been the good 
ortune of labor to produce from its ranks men who, 
10ugh unlearned in the arts of oratory, were yet ora- 
mrs of the highest order, if effect instead of fluency is 
onsidered. It is the occasion that makes the orator 
s it is the battle that makes the veteran. Mark An- 
yny said: ‘I am no orator like Brutus,’ but when he 
howed Czesar’s mantle to the populists of Rome and 
ointed out where the conspirators’ daggers had stabbed 
esar, the oratory of Brutus paled before his burning 
ords. And every man, however humble he may esteem 
imself, may on Labor Day hold up the Constitution of 
2e United States and point to where the judicial dagger 
tabbed liberty to death, and make the people ery out 
or the reénthronement of the Constitution—and Terre 
faute has a hundred such orators. 

**T write in the hurry and press of business. Before 
le are a hundred letters demanding replies. I pass 
hem by to respond to an appeal from my home, and 
1 fancy, as I write, I am with you. I am at home 
gain. My father bending beneath the weight of many 
ears salutes me. My mother, whose lullaby songs nestle 
nd coo in the inner temple of my memory, caresses me 
—her kiss baptizes me with joy and as if by enchant- 
1ent : 


‘Years and sin and folly flee, 
And leave me at my mother’s knee.’ 


““In this mood I write with the hope that the cele- 
ration at Terre Haute will inspire renewed devotion to 
he interests of labor, and with a heart full of good 
yishes, I subscribe myself, 

**Yours fraternally, 
**H. V. Dess.’’ 
‘Dict. E. V. D.’’ 
The business of the American Railway Union was 


1 
162 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


conducted by Debs and his associates from the Wood 
stock Jail for the six months that they were imprisoned 
The Railroad Managers’ Association was not idle eithel’ 
in those days, for they had their agents stationed or 
every railroad line where the A. R. U. had a unit oj 
organization, and it was the business of these agents 
to report to their superiors the presence of A. R. U 
men and union organizers who were summarily dis 
missed from the company’s employ. 

Just before his release from Woodstock Jail, which 
occurred November 22, 1895, a friendly committee ol 
labor men in Chicago sent out invitations ‘‘to liberty; 
loving citizens’’ to attend a reception at Battery D 
Chicago, to Debs as a ‘‘testimony of their sympathy with 
Mr. Debs and his colleagues in their unjust and unlawful 
imprisonment and as an expression of popular ae 
to judicial oho and devotion to civil and consti. 
tutional liberty.’’ 

Debs’s last night in Woodstock was spent in il 
slumber. At one second after midnight the sheriff 
aroused him and told him that he was free. All that 
day and night great crowds of farmers and men and 
women and children of all classes and conditions had 
made the journey to Woodstock from Chicago, fifty-fiv 
miles distant, and from adjacent towns, to get a loo 
at the man who had defied the titanic railroad combina- 
tions of that day, and who had gone to prison as a re- 
sult of his efforts in behalf of the toiling masses. , 

Debs had his breakfast that morning with the Sheriff, 
and the morning was spent in visiting, with his brothel 
Theodore, the townspeople of Woodstoek, who had in 
many ways indicated to him while he was in jail their 
kindness and interest. Debs was to leave Woodstock oa 
the five o’clock train for Chicago, where a huge demon- 
stration had been arranged in his honor. As he wa 
standing on the steps of the sheriff’s residence a thro 
of burly workingmen hove into view. Debs was call 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 163 


rounded by shouting, -yelling men, women and chil- 
ren eager to show him their joy and appreciation. 
he men pushed their way through the throng and all 
; once one of them shouted, ‘‘Lift him up so we all 
in see him.’’ Debs was hoisted upon the shoulders of 
veral men and in this fashion he was carried to the 
lilroad station to await the coming of the train. It 
as estimated that ten thousand people swung into ir- 
‘gular lines behind the few men who were carrying 
ebs on their shoulders. The hands of excited and ex- 
tant women and children covered his dangling legs 
ad farmers and working men tugged at his coat sleeves. 
ne or two small-town bands, catching the spirit of 
le occasion, got their pieces together and furnished flar- 
i music. No county fair or Chautauqua could have 
ispired as much enthusiasm as these simple country 
lk exhibited over the liberation of this simple man 
ho was, in fact, overwhelmed and humbled by the 
iow of love and feeling of his fellow citizens. 
Crowds surged around the train as it rounded the 
irve at the station, and hundreds boarded it. The 
de to Chicago was made amid singing and band music 
ad the noise of the grinding wheels was drowned in 
le merriment of those who were determined to turn to 
ietory what the court had decreed as defeat. 

The train arrived at the Wells street station, and 
aspite a falling rain and mud and slush, the news- 
aper reports of the period estimated that 100,000 
sople of all shades and conditions of life swarmed into 
ie shed of the depot, literally sweeping Debs off his 
et and carrying him to a waiting carriage drawn by 
x white horses. But if there was any one who thought 
lebs would ride while they waiked they were soon to 
2 disappointed, for when Debs saw the carriage await- 
ie him he said, ‘‘No. If the rest walk, I shall walk, too. 
Vhat is good enough for them is also good enough for 
e,”? 


164 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


That occasion was so significant in view of the condi- 
tions that had provoked it that I must yield to the 
temptation to quote from a newspaper of that day, the 
Chicago Chronicle, of November 23, 1895: 

“The arrival of the train bea the party with Merl 
Debs, which was carefully awaited, was the signal for a 
mighty yell. The crowd on the platform started it and 
it was taken up by those who thronged the stairs leading © 
down to the platform and those who were above in the 
street. The cheering became deafening. When Debs 
appeared on the platform of the coach the cheers be- 
came a tumult of frantic yells. Those who were nearest 
the labor leader rushed to him and seized him in their 
arms and bore him from the car into the surging, strug- 
gling, pushing, cheering, yelling throng. Sitting on — 
the shoulders of men and raised above the heads of the 
crowd, bareheaded and smiling, Debs acknowledged the 
salutes of the crowd, bowing and waving his hat. Which 
ever way the labor leader turned there was a fresh 
outburst of cheers, but so great was the crowd that it © 
remained wedged together. No one could move. The 
police cried in vain, but they could hardly hear their own © 
voices. . . . Those who were near enough reached out to 
touch the leader’s garments and those who were not were 
madly striving to do so, 

‘“The men who were bearing Debs on their shoulders 
had not gone ten paces from the car when they could 
go no farther. From every direction the crowd faced 
toward their idol. Men cried for air and egress from 
the pressing mass, but no one heard them. The police- 
men were as powerless as every one else... . 

‘“The slender form of the man whose presence brought 
out the outpouring was all the while held aloft and safe 
from the crush. A smile was playing over his clean-cut 
features. His face was aglow with the triumph of the 
OUT: |i, | 

‘‘Never did men strive and struggle so to demonstrate 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 165 


heir love for a fellowman just released from a convict’s 
ell. Theirs was no outward show alone. There was | 
10 Sycophancy in them. . . . When he reached the Wells 
treet bridge he asked those who bore him to set him 
lown where his old lieutenant, William E. Burns, who 
yas also a prisoner with Debs in Woodstock Jail, had 
yotten near enough to speak to him. They halted then 
o form a line to march in order to Battery D. 

‘More than fifty of the labor unions of Chicago were 
epresented in the six coaches that went out to Wood- 
tock to receive Mr. Debs. The procession that marched 
hrough the storm was composed of the members of 
very trade union in the city, wearing badges and march- 
ng in his honor.’’ 

The Chicago Evening Press, of November 23, 1895, 
vas moved to say editorially of Debs’s release: 

**In the face of facts developed yesterday, it is idle 
0 say that Eugene V. Debs has lost the esteem of the 
nasses. No such demonstration as was made in his 
1onor yesterday and last night has been seen in this 
ity in many years, if at all. Had he been the victorious 
oldier returned fresh from conquests instead of a con- 
rict liberated from prison, his welcome could not have 
een more spontaneous, enthusiastic, sympathetic.”’ 

After pointing to the fact that very often rich men and 
yfficials of corporations do not go to prison for trans- 
sressing the laws, and showing that it was common for 
he trusts to debauch the courts and bribe legislators, the 
Press concluded its editorial comment with this poignant 
paragraph: 

“‘The day must never come when there is no law. 
But it must come when Justice will rip the bandage 
from her eyes and see and call for the Havemeyers and 
the Standard Oil Magnates, as well as for the Debses.”’ 


SPEECH OF DEBS AFTER HIS RELEASE 


In crowded Battery D, Debs delivered what was per- 


166 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


haps the most brilliant oration he had made up to that” 
time. As he was closing, he said: 
‘‘In prison my life was a busy one and the time for 
meditation and to give the imagination free rein va 
when the daily task was over and Night’s sable curtains 
enveloped the world in darkness, relieved only by the 
sentinel stars and the earth’s silver satellite ‘walking 
in lovely beauty to her midnight throne.’ It was at 
such times that the reverend stones of the prison walls | 
preached sermons, sometimes rising in grandeur to the 
Sermon on the Mount. It might be a question in the 
minds of some if this occasion warrants the indulgence 
of the fancy. It will be remembered that A‘sop taught 
the world by fables and Christ by parables, but my 
recollection is that the old stone preachers were as epi- 
/grammatie as an unabridged dictionary. I remembeng 
one old divine stone who one night selected for his text | 
/‘George M. Pullman,’ and said, ‘George is a bad egg; ‘ 
handle him with care. If you crack his shell the odor | 
would depopulate Chicago in an hour.’ All the rest of 
the stones said ‘Amen’ and the services closed. : 
‘‘T have borne with such composure as I could com- 
mand the imprisonment which deprived me of my lib- 
erty. Were I a criminal, were I guilty of crimes merit-_ 
ing a prison cell, had I ever lifted my hand against the | 
life or liberty . my fellowmen, had I ever sought to) 
filch their good name I could not be here. I would have 
fled from the haunts of civilization and taken up my 
residence in some cave where the voice of my kindred 
is never heard; but I am standing here with no self- 
accusation of crime or criminal intent festering in my 
couscience, in the sunlight, once more among my fellow- 
men, contributing as best I can to make this celebration | 
day from prison a memorial day. . . .” ‘ 
The next day Debs went to his hadiale in Terre Haute. 
The same demonstration, on a smaller seale, awaited his 
arrival. It had been raining all that day but this fact 


i 


t 
oy 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 167 


did not dampen the enthusiasm of his fellow townspeo- 
ple. ‘Several hundred miners, with the Coal Bluff Band, 
escorted him to his home, a few blocks distant. That 
evening the throngs gathered about his home and in- 
sisted that he come to the Armory to address them. 
The streets along the route were alight with Roman 
eandles. His speech on that occasion was brief, the 
most of the time being consumed in shaking hands with 
his townsmen. Debs did speak sharply on that occasion 
of the judiciary and its tendencies, saying: 

““Tf all the common people united and asked for the 
appointment of a federal judge their voice would not 
be heeded any more than if it were the chirp of a 
ericket. Money talks. Yes, money talks. And I have 
no hesitancy in declaring that money has invaded, or the 
influence, that power conferred by money, has invaded ' 
the Supreme Court and left that august tribunal reeking 
with more stench than Coleridge discovered in Cologne 
and left all the people wondering how it was ever to 
be deodorized. There is something wrong in this coun- 
try; the judicial nets are so adjusted as to catch the 
minnows and let the whales slip through and the federal 
judge is as far removed from the common people as if 
he inhabited another planet. As Boyle O’Reilly would 
say: 


“« “TTis pulse, if you felt it, throbbed apart 
From the throbbing pulse of the people’s heart.” ’” 


No matter where he goes, what the circumstances are, 
or under whose auspices, Debs touches all with whom he | 
comes in contact by his kindness and his love. When 
he left Woodstock Jail he carried in his pocket a testi- 
monial from the inmates, as follows: 

“We, the undersigned, inmates of Woodstock Jail, 
desire to convey to you our heartfelt thanks and grati- 
tude for the many acts of kindness and sympathy shown 


168 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


to us by you during your incarceration in this institu- | 


tion. 

‘‘We selfishly regret your departure from here into 
the outer world and scenes of labor. Your presence here 
has been to us what an oasis in a desert is to the tired 
and weary traveler, or a ray of sunshine showing through 
a rift in the clouds. 

‘‘With thousands of others we rejoice and extend to 
you our most earnest congratulations upon your restora- 
tion to liberty. 

‘“Hoping you may have a long, prosperous and happy 
life, success in all your undertakings, especially the 
‘American Railway Union,’ we all join in wishing you 
Godspeed and beg to subscribe ourselves, Your friends, 
CuHarRLES E. ANDERSON, PauL WAMBACH, 

Epwarp Mappen, W. E. Horton. 
To Eucene V. Desss, Esq., 
Woodstock, Ill., Nov. 22, 1895. 

The legal expenses of the American Railway Union in- 
cident to the trial of its officials had amounted to more 
than forty thousand dollars, and, when the Union fell 
apart, Debs, for many years, helped to pay off this obli- 
gation through his lectures and writings, despite the fact 
that there was no personal obligation resting upon him 
so to do. 

Debs entered Woodstock Jail a labor unionist, and, 
after spending six months in a cell he came out a So- 
cialist, thoroughly convinced that the full measure of 
justice and liberty which he had hoped for could not 
be gained for or by the working class unless they were 
to act in concert, industrially and politically. This 
conviction dawned upon him while he was yet in prison. 

On November 23, 1895, the day following Debs’s re- 
lease from Woodstock, there appeared in The Coming 
Nation, one of the earliest Socialist journals in this 
country, a letter by Debs first advoeating the use of the 
ballot by working men as a means toward establishing 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 169 


“the Codperative Commonwealth.’’ We shall quote 
only a paragraph from this letter which reflected the 
Socialistic trend of his mind twenty-five years ago: 

**, . Above all, what is the duty of American work- 
ingmen whose liberties have been placed in peril? They 
are not hereditary bondsmen; their fathers were free- 
born—their sovereignty none denied and their children 
yet have the ballot. It has been called a ‘weapon that 
executes a free man’s will as lightning does the will of 
God.’ It is a metaphor pregnant with life and truth. 
There is nothing in our government it can not remove 
or amend. It can make and unmake presidents and 
congresses and courts. It can abolish unjust laws and 
consign to eternal odium and oblivion unjust judges, 
strip from them their robes and gowns and send them 
forth unclean as lepers to bear the burden of merited 
obliquy as Cain with the mark of a murderer. It can 
Sweep our trusts, syndicates, corporations, monopolies 
and every other abnormal development of the money 
power designed to abridge the liberties of workingmen 
and enslave them by the degradation incident to pov- 
erty and enforced idleness as cyclones scatter the leaves 
of our forests. The ballot can do all this and more. 
It can give our civilization its crowning glory—the Co- 
operative Commonwealth. To the unified hosts of Amer- 
ican workmen fate has committed the charge of rescuing 
‘American liberties from the grasp of the vandal horde 
that have placed them in peril, by seizing the ballot and 
wielding it to regain the priceless heritage and to pre- 
serve and transmit it, without scar or blemish to the 
generations yet to come.” 

The following year, 1896, Debs followed the banner 
of Bryan, ‘‘but I was a long way toward Socialism even 
at that time,’’ he said many years afterward. 

A year later, 1897, Debs ceased all compromise and 
equivocation with the political and industrial question, 
coming out publicly for Socialism. His announcement 


170 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


of his stand took the form of a circular letter addressed 
to the members of the American Railway Union on Janu- 
ary 1, 1897. This cireular bore the caption: ‘‘ Present 
Conditions and Future Duties,’’ and concluded with 
this statement: 

‘““The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for 
Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been 
cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money con- 
stitutes no proper basis of civilization. The time has 
come to regenerate society—we are on the eve of a 
universal change.’’ 

Just six months later the American Railway Union 
held its convention in Chicago. Debs and the majority 
of the delegates favored political action. On June 21, 
1897, the Social-Democratic party was formed, and this 
was the beginning of the Socialist movement in the 
United States, with Debs as its devoted champion and 
leader. 


COMMISSION INVESTIGATES STRIKE 


Before we leave this phase of his life it seems neces- 
sary to take up, very briefly, the report of President 
Cleveland’s commission appointd by him to investigate 
the causes of the Pullman and the A. R. U. strikes. 
This commission met in Chicago in the summer of 1895. 
In order that he might attend its sessions and testify, 
Debs was taken daily from Woodstock Jail to Chicago by 
two deputy sheriffs. 

Upon taking the stand Debs said: 

‘‘Government supervision would not answer the pur- 
pose of preventing strikes. No good could come from 
compulsory arbitration; that is a contradiction in terms. 
Even if some means of enforcing the decree could be 
devised, those against whom the decree was rendered 
would not be satisfied. The basis must be friendship 
and confidence. Government ownership of railroads 


—_ — | 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 171 


would be better than railroad ownership of govern- 
men 2” 

“‘What about strikes in other industries?’’ inquired 
Commissioner Worthington. Debs replied: 

**The replacement of the wage system by the Codpera- 
tive Commonwealth could alone solve the problem; as 
long as a man is dependent on another for work, he is 
a slave. With labor-saving machinery, which term is 
now a misnomer, as it is really labor-displacing machin- 
ery, unrestricted emigration and ten men bidding for a 
job, wages are bound to go lower and lower. Capitalists 
instinctively feel their affinity. I want the working 
people to feel the same way. To illustrate—in the late 
strike we did nothing to interfere with the Chicago 
Herald’s business, yet the Herald felt its kinship to the 
capitalists who owned the railroads and made unmiti- 
gated war on the railroad employees.”’ 

“*Tf such a unification of working people was accom- 
plished, would it not have a dangerous power?’’ asked 
Commissioner Kernan. 

‘*A little power is more dangerous than great power,’” 
Debs answered. ‘‘If you have one hundred switchmen 
working in a yard and ten or twelve of them are organ- 
ized, you will have a strike on your hands very soon. 
The unification of labor would mean the abolition of the 
wage system.”’ 

At another point Debs said: 

**It is understood that a strike is a war, not neces- 
sarily of blood and bullets, but a war in the sense that 
it is a conflict between two contending interests or classes 
of interest. There is more or less strategy, too, in war 
and this was necessary in our operations in the A. R. U. 
strike. Orders were issued from here; questions were 
answered and our men kept in line from here.”’ 

There was some remarkable testimony given to the 
commission by federal, state and municipal officials, as 
well as newspaper reporters, concerning the conduct of 


~ 


172 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


federal soldiers and deputies who were sent into the 


strike zone ‘‘to maintain law and order and protect — 


private property.’’ For instance, Chief Deputy U. 8. 
Marshal Donnelly said: 

‘“We had a regular force of men sworn in of between 
fourteen and fifteen hundred, and then we swore in 
four thousand for the railroads. The government armed 
and paid the regular force and the railroads armed and 
paid the others. The first lot of men we got were a 
poor lot. We went on the street and got such men as 
we could. The better class of men said they wouldn’t 
serve against the strikers. At first we didn’t ask for 
any certificates of character or fitness. We received our 
instructions from Attorney General Olney. He told us 
to hire all the men we needed. The number we needed 
was decided on at conferences between the United States 
District Attorney and Mr. Walker, special Assistant Dis- 
trict Attorney, and attorney for the Chicago, Milwaukee 
and St. Paul Railway. The railroads would send in a 
batch of men, saying they were all right, and we gave 
-the ‘stars’ to the railroads and took their receipt for 
them. These railway deputies were not under our 
orders; they made their reports to no one except the 


chief detectives of the railroads. They derived their — 


- authority from the United States. All the violence I 
saw and the car burning was done by boys—tough kids.’’ 

Superintendent Brennan, of the Chicago Police De- 
partment, in his report to the City Councils, stated that 
the strike was orderly and peaceable “‘until the army 
of thugs, thieves and ex-convicts’’ were Sworn in as 
United States deputies by Mr. Walker. On page 356 
of the commission’s report appears this statement: 

‘‘Superintendent Brennan, of the Chicago Police, 
testified before the Commission that he has a number of 
deputy marshals in the county jail arrested while serv- 
ing the railroads as United States deputy marshals for 
highway robbery.”’ 


ee 5 


\ 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 173 


Ray Stannard Baker, then a reporter for the Chicago 
Record, who, during the World Peace Conference at 
Versailles in 1919, was head of the American Informa- 
tion Press Bureau, testified as to his knowledge concern- 
ing the character of the U. S. deputies: 

“‘F'rom my experience with them it was very bad. I 
saw more cases of drunkenness, I believe, among the 
United States deputy marshals than I did among the | 
strikers.”’ 

On page 370 of the report appears this comment of 
Harold I. Cleveland, reporter for the Chicago Herald: 

“‘T was on the tracks of the Western Indiana fourteen 
days. . . . I saw in that time a couple of hundred dep- 
uty marshals. I think they were a very low, contempti- 
ble set of men.’’ 

On page 39 of the Commission’s report we find that 
the late Mayor Pingree of Detroit came to Chicago with 
telegrams from the mayors of over fifty of the largest 
cities all urging that there should be arbitration. He 
was turned down without ceremony, and afterwards de- 
elared that the railroads were the only criminals and 
that they were responsible for all the consequences. 

Mr. Harding, reporter for the Chicago Times, testi- 
fied as follows: 

“‘Captain O’Neill, of the Stock Yards, told me that 
volleys of shots were fired by the soldiers or the militia 
every day or night, which, on investigation, proved to 
have no cause other than the desire to create excitement. 
A crowd would naturally gather, newspaper reporters 
would flock around and they would gather something to 
tell, to brag about in the papers. I know this is so from 
talks with the men themselves.”’ 

After examining hundreds of witnesses the Commis- 
‘sion made its report to President Cleveland. That re- 
port is in many respects a remarkable document and 
constitutes one of the most valuable histories of that 
phase of the American labor movement in which Debs 


174 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


was a prime factor. We shall set down here only a 
few of the salient features of that report which, by the 
way, President Grover Cleveland virtually repudiated 
in an article signed by him, and reviewing and com- 
menting upon the Pullman and A. R. U. strikes. This 
article of the late President was published in McClure’s 


q 


Magazine, July, 1904, under the title, ‘‘The Government — 


in the Chicago Strikes of 1894.’’ At the time of the 


publication of President Cleveland’s article, in which — 


the former chief executive naturally upheld and justified © 
the conduct of his administration in that period of tur- — 
bulence, Debs was engaged in his second campaign for — 


President on the Socialist Party ticket. 


Debs at once set himself to the task of replying to | 


President Cleveland’s article. McClure’s did not pub- 


lish it. Debs’s answer finally appeared in the Socialist — 


weekly, The Appeal to Reason, August 27, 1904. Debs 
referred to that report as follows: 
“‘On page 44 of the Commission’s report it is stated: 
** “United States deputy marshals, to the number of 
3,600, were selected by and appointed at the request of 
the General Managers’ Association, and of its railroads. 


They were armed and paid by the railroads, and acted — 
in the double capacity of railroad employees and United — 


States officers. While operating the railroads they as- 
sumed and exercised unrestricted United States author- 
ity when so ordered by their employers, or whenever 
they regarded it as necessary. They were not under the 
direct control of any government official while exercising 
authority. This is placing officers of the government 
under control of a combination of railroads. It is a bad 


precedent that might well lead to serious consequences.’ 


‘* As to the part the strikers played in the,rioting and 
car burning that took place, we find on page 38 that: 

“< «The strike occurred on May 11, and from that time 
until the soldiers went to Pullman, about July 4, 300 
strikers were placed about the company’s property, pro- 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 175 


fessedly to guard it from destruction or interference. 
This guarding of property in strikes is, as a rule, a mere 
pretense. Too often the real object of guards is to pre- 
vent newcomers from taking strikers’ places, by per- 
suasion, often to be followed, if ineffectual, by intimida- 
tion and violence. The Pullman company claims this 
was the real object of these guards. The strikers are 
entitled to be believed to the contrary in this matter, | 
because of their conduct and forebearance after May 
11. It is in evidence, and uncontradicted, that no vio- 
lence or destruction of property by strikers or. sym- 
pathizers took place at Pullman, and that until July 3 
(federal troops appeared on the scene on this date) 
no extraordinary protection was had from the police or 
military against anticipated disorder.’ ’’ 

The newspapers of that period, obviously persuaded 
by the railroad corporations, printed articles to the 
effect that the A. R. U. strikers were guilty of high 
erimes and wholesale destruction of railroad property. 
Tt will be remembered that it was upon these charges 
that the federal grand jury at Chicago based the in- 
dictment against Debs and his associates. Concerning 
this matter the Commission says, on page 45 of its 
report: 

“There is no evidence before the Commission that the 
officers of the American Railway Union at any time par- 
ticipated in or advised intimidation, violence or de- 
struction of property. They knew, and fully appre- 
ciated, that as soon as mobs ruled the organized forces 
of society would crush the mobs and all responsible for 
them in the remotest degree, and that this meant defeat. 
The attacks on corporations and monopolies by the lead- 
ers in their speeches are similar to those to be found 
in the magazines and industrial works of the day.’’ 

On page 46 of the same report we read: 

*“Many impartial observers are reaching the view 
that much of the real responsibility for these disorders 


176 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


rests with the people themselves and with the government 
for not adequately controlling monopolies and corpora- 
tions, and failing to reasonably protect the rights of 
labor and redress its wrongs.”’ 

The subtle manner in which the message of Socialism | 
began to seep through the bolted doors and barred win- 
dows of Woodstock Jail to Debs is best told by him- 
self :* | 
“Tt all seems very strange to me now, taking a back- 
ward look, that my vision was so focalized on a single” 
objective point that I utterly failed to see what now 
appears as clear as the noonday sun—so clear that I 
marvel that any workingman, however dull, uncompre-_ 
hending, can resist it. 

“‘But perhaps it was better so. I was to be baptized 
in Socialism in the roar of conflict and I thank the gods 
for reserving to this fitful occasion the fiat, ‘Let there 
be light!’—the light that streams in steady radiance 
upon the broadway to the Socialist Republic. : 

‘‘The skirmish lines of the A. R. U. were well ad- 
vanced. A series of small battles were fought and won 
without the loss of aman. A number of concessions were 
made by the corporations rather than risk an encounter. 
Then came the fight on the Great Northern, short, sharp, 
and decisive. The victory was complete—the only rail-— 
road strike of magnitude ever won by an organization 
in America. . 

“‘Next followed the final shock—the Pullman strike— 
and the American Railway Union again won, clear and 
complete. The combined corporations were paralyzed 
and helpless. At this juncture there were delivered, 
from wholly unexpected quarters, a swift succession of 
blows that blinded me for an instant and then opened 
wide my eyes—and in the gleam of every bayonet and 
the flash of every rifle the class struggle was revealed. 


*<<How I Became a Socialist,’’ in New York Comrade, April, | 
1902. 
| 


f 


LABOR UNIONIST AND WOODSTOCK 177 


This was my first practical lesson in Socialism, though 
wholly unaware that it was called by that name. 

“An army of detectives, thugs and murderers were 
equipped with badge and beer and bludgeon and turned 
loose ; old hulks of cars were fired ; the alarm bells tolled ; 
the people were terrified ; the most startling rumors were 
set afloat; the press volleyed and thundered, and over 
all the wires spread the news that Chicago’s white throat 
was in the clutch of a red mob; injunctions flew thick 
and fast, arrests followed, and our office and headquar- 
ters, the heart of the strike, was sacked, torn out and 
nailed up by the ‘lawful’ authorities of the federal 
government; and when in company with my loyal com- 
rades I found myself in Cook County Jail at Chicago 
with the whole press screaming conspiracy, treason and 
murder, and by some fateful coincidence I was given the 
cell occupied just previous to his execution by the as- 
sassin of Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr., overlooking the 
spot, a few feet distant, where the anarchists were 
hanged a few years before, I had another exceedingly 
practical and impressive lesson in Socialism. 

‘‘Acting upon the advice of friends, we sought to 
employ John Harlan, son of the Supreme Justice, to 
assist in our defense—a defense memorable to me chiefly 
because of the skill and fidelity of our lawyers, among 
whom were the brilliant Clarence Darrow and the ven- 
erable Judge Lyman Trumbull, author of the thirteenth 
amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the 
United States. 

“Mr. Harlan wanted to think of the matter over 
night ; and the next morning gravely informed us that 
he could not afford to be identified with the case, ‘for,’ 
said he, ‘you will be tried upon the same theory as were 
the anarchists, with probably the same result.’ That 
day, I remember, the jailer, by way of consolation, I 
suppose, showed us the blood-stained rope used at the 
last execution and explained in minutest detail, as he 


178 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS | 


exhibited the gruesome relic, just how the monstrous 
erime of lawful murder is comiali 

‘“But the tempest gradually subsided and with it the 
blood-thirstiness of the press and ‘public sentiment.’ 
We were not sentenced to the gallows, nor even to the 
penitentiary—though put on trial for conspiracy. ... . 

“‘The Chicago jail sentences were followed by six 
months at Woodstock and it was here that Socialism 
gradually laid hold of me in its own irresistible fashion. ~ 
Books and pamphlets and letters from Socialists came by 
every mail and I began to read and think and dissect 
the anatomy of the system in which workingmen, how- 
ever organized, could be shattered and battered and 
splintered at a single stroke. The writings of Bellamy © 
and Blatchford early appealed to me. The ‘Codperative 
Commonwealth’ of Gronlund also impressed me, but the 
writings of Kautsky were so clear and conclusive that I” 
readily grasped, not merely his argument, but also 
caught the spirit of his Socialist utterance—and I thank” 
him and all who helped me out of darkness into light. i 

‘Tt was-at this time, when the first glimmerings of — 
Socialism were beginning to penetrate, that Victor L._ 
Berger—and I have loved him ever since—came to” 
Woodstock, as if a providential instrument, and deliv-— 
ered the first impassioned message of Socialism I had 


in my calbetlye As a souvenir of that visit there is i 
my library a volume of ‘Capital,’ by Karl Marx, in | 
scribed with the compliments of Victor L. Berger, which 
I cherish as a token of priceless value. , 

‘‘The American Railway Union was defeated but not 
conquered—overwhelmed but not destroyed. It lives 
and pulsates in the Socialist movement, and its defeat 
but blazed the way to economic freedom and hastened 
the dawn of human brotherhood.’’ } 


CHAPTER VIII 
FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 


IN four presidential campaigns—1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 

—Debs was the standard-bearer of the Socialist 
Party, and in 1916 he could have had the nomination 
had he not positively declined to make another national 
campaign. In that year Allan Benson, publicist, was 
the choice of the Socialists, while Debs stumped his 
home state, Indiana, as candidate for Congress. Of the 
campaign in 1900 but little is known save by those 
Socialists who date their membership in the party back 
twenty years. James Oneal, a member of the National 
Executive Committee of the party, and an intimate 
friend and neighbor of Debs for many years, stated 
that there was no stenographic record made of the 1900 
convention proceedings, and whatever record was kept 
has not been published. The Socialist movement in 
those days was known as the Social-Democratic Party. 
It was usually regarded by the public as a fanatical 
band bent upon subtle destruction of the commonwealth 
“through their impossible economic and political theo- 
ries.’? William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan 
were the. nominees of the Republican and Democratic 
parties, respectively, but neither of them expended more 
energy or made a more intensive campaign than Debs 
who covered every state and territory, not once but sev- 
eral times. Debs’s vote in that year was 96,116.* 

Despite the comparative insignificance of his vote, 
that campaign stamped Debs a national figure, an orator 
of the first rank, of great eloquence and arresting sin- 
eerity. So, four years later it was but natural that 

* Figures from 1919 ‘‘ World Almana¢ and Encyclopedia.’’ 

179 


180 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


the Socialists in national convention should again honor 
their foremost member. 

On May 5, 1904, George D. Herron made the speech 
nominating Debs for president. Mr. Herron has since 
gained some prominence outside of the Socialist move- 
ment, from which he has severed his connections, by his 
public writings approving the administration of Presi- 
dent Woodrow Wilson in the World War of 1914-1919. 
Mr. Herron closed his speech nominating Debs in this 
vein: 

. I am sure that in the intensifying struggle that — 
will bring upon us, in the next four or five years, things 
of which we do not now dream, that may try men’s souls” 
and bodies and faith, try the whole manhood of men as — 
possibly men were never tried in human history—I feel 3 
that when that crisis or that day of judgment comes, the © 
working class Socialist movement of America will be as” 
great as its cause, and that it will rise up to match its 
opportunity. 

‘‘Now, there is no man in America who more surely 
_ and faithfully incarnates the heart- ache and the acai : 
and the struggle of labor for its emancipation, or more — 
surely voices that struggle, than Eugene V. Debs. . . 

I count it as among the great joys of my life—I do not 
say honors, because I have done with them long ago—I — 
count it among the great joys and opportunities of my — 
life to stand before you to-day and nominate Eugene V. 
Debs as the candidate of the Socialist Party of the 
Beets Be for President in our coming national cam- 
paign.’ ; 
There were no other persons nominated and the con- 
vention made Debs’s choice unanimous. At this conven-— 
tion Benjamin Hanford was unanimously chosen as the ~ 
Vice-Presidential nominee. Morris Hillquit, recognized — 
as one of the leading spokesmen for the American So- 
cialist movement, in seconding Hanford’s nomination, if 
said: 


4 
° FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 181 


_ **. _. . Under no circumstances could any better choice, 
any worthier choice, have been made for associate to the 
presidential candidate than you have made by the selec- 

tion of Benjamin Hanford. . . . Thestrength and brains 
of the working class of this country will be well repre- 
sented on our ticket.’’ 

In his speech of acceptance Hanford, now dead, paid 
a glowing tribute to Debs, stating that it was the opinion 
of the majority of the delegates long before the con- 
yention assembled that Debs would be the best possible 
bearer of the party’s banner. 

On May 6 Debs appeared before the convention and 
made his speech of acceptance. In introducing Debs to 
the convention, Chairman Seymour Stedman said: 
“Comrades, it is my pleasure to present to you the 
Ferdinand La Salle of the twentieth_century.”’ 

Debs replied, in part, as follows: 

“Tn the councils of the Socialist Party the collective 
will is supreme. Personally, I could have wished to 
remain in the ranks, to make my record, humble though 
it might be, fighting unnamed and unhonored, side by 
side with my comrades. I accept your nomination, not 
because of any honor it confers—for in the Socialist 
movement no comrade can be honored except as he hon- 
ors himself by his fidelity to the movement. I accept 
your nomination because of the confidence it implies, 
because of the duty it imposes. I cannot but wish that 
I may in a reasonable measure meet your expectations; 
that I might prove myself fit and worthy to bear aloft in 
the coming contest the banner of the working class; that 
by my utterances and by my acts, not as an individual, 
but as your representative, I may prove myself worthy 
to bear the standard of the only party that proposes to 
emancipate my class from the thralldom of the ages. . . . 

“To concentrate myself to my part in this great work 
is My supreme ambition. I can only hope to do that 
Part which is expected of me so well that my comrades, 


182 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


_ when the final verdict is rendered, will say, ‘He is not 
remembered because he was a candidate for President 
he did not aspire to hold office; he did not try to asso- 
ciate his name with the passing glories, but he did 
prove himself a worthy member of the Socialist Pa 
he proved his right to a place in the International 
cialist movement.’ . . . 
“From the depths of my heart I thank you. I thank 
you and each of you, and through you thosé-you repre. 
sent. I thank you not from my lips merely. I thank 
you from the depths of a heart that is responsive to 
your consideration. We shall meet again. We shall 
meet often. And when we meet finally we shall meet as 
a victorious host to ratify the triumph of the Sociali 
. Republic.’’ q 
In the campaign of 1904 Debs had, as its leading op- 
ponents, Theodore Roosevelt and Jade Alton B. Par 
ker, Republican and Democratic nominees respectively. 
In this campaign, as in the previous one, Debs was ac- 
companied by his brother Theodore Debs, and several 
other veteran Socialist campaigners, among whom was 
Stephen Marion Reynolds. Debs carried the message 
of Socialism into every state in the Union and into 
every territory. For two months before the election he 
was on the road constantly, sometimes delivering six to 
ten speeches a day. The intensiveness of his campaign 
was the marvel of political cireumstances, and the sin 
cerity with which he conducted it evoked the admiration 
of all who heard him. 4 
In 1904 Debs’s vote jumped to 402 321* The in 
creased Socialist vote of over 400 per cent. gave rise to 
the gravest fears and the wildest joys—fears in the con® 
servative camps, joys in the radical camps. q 
Between the years 1904-1908, and for some while after 
the latter year, Debs was contributing editor to the 
Appeal to Reason, when that free-lance Socialist weekly 
* Figures from 1919 ‘‘ World Almanac and Encyclopedia.’? ; 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 183 


was published by the late J. A. Wayland, and edited 
by Fred Warren at Girard, Kansas. Between the presi- 
dential campaigns referred to, Debs toured the country 
several times under various auspices of the labor move- 
ment. He was never too tired to respond to a pressing 
demand, and they were many, to stop off at a wayside 
town or village to address his comrades. Scores of times 
after filling strenuous speaking engagements he has 
sat up all night on trains so that he might stop off at 
some city or town along the route to visit a faithful 
follower whom he knew to be ill or in need. . 

With the financial panic of 1907 a cloud of indus- 
trial depression again settled over the country, and the 
Socialists turned their attention to plans for the most 
intensive presidential campaign they had ever waged. 
The Socialists were the first of the political parties to 
hold their national convention. William H. Taft was the 
candidate of the Republicans, and Mr. Bryan, for the 
third time, was the choice of the Democratic Party. 
On May 14 Delegate Phillip H. Callery, of Missouri, 
made the opening speech nominating Debs for Presi- 
dent. At the conclusion of his oration Callery told the 
delegates that if they nominated Debs he would ‘‘bring 
a@ message of hope to the weary mothers in the sweat- 
shops, the thousands of child slaves in the factories, and 
to all of those who, with tired hands and saddened faces, 
bear the burdens of the world’s work. It has been said 
of this comrade that he has made mistakes, to which 
we answer, ‘To err is human, to forgive is divine.’ This 
comrade bears the battle scars of twenty-five years of 
service in the labor movement.”’ 

John Spargo, who was a delegate from New York, and 
who had given many years of his life to the Socialist 
movement before he became a missionary and an apolo- 
gist for the reactionary elements of the social system, 
in Russia as well as in the United States, made a brilliant: 


184 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


speech seconding Debs’s nomination. Among other 
things, Spargo said: | 

*““We need above everything else, as our standard 
bearer, a man who will give us back our standard un- 
sullied and unspoiled as he takes it; we need a man who 
will carry it from east to west and from north to south 
not merely without dishonor, but with the spirit of in- 
spiration and of the revolution of the working class 
along with it. Eugene V. Debs is not only ¢ a man who 
will carry the spirit of the working class revolution 
along with its banner; he is the personification of the 
revolt of the working class in this country. . . . Eugene” 
V. Debs drank the genius and passion for liberty from 
his mother’s breasts. . . . He has breathed that genius’ 
and that passion with every breath of his own in these 
twenty-five years. . . . When Eugene V. Debs was born’ 
I think the morning stars must have sung together. 
When Eugene V. Debs was cradled I think that the great 
spirit of liberty must have watched with proud rejoicing 
and said, ‘Here is my champion; here is my voice to 
ery out to all the world and say, as the prophet said 0 7 
old, ‘Let my people go!’ When Eugene V. Debs | 
speaks there rises before the gaze of every workingman 
in this country whose heart responds to the yearning 
for liberty, a vision of breaking chains, a vision of the 
uprising protesting host marching out of its re 


marching out of its servitude, marching on and on to 
‘that great freedom to which we all aspire. Therefor j 
I second the nomination of Eugene V. Debs.’’ i 

Delegate Seymour Stedman, of Chicago, opposed the 
nomination of Debs and named A. M. Simons, who, hk 
Spargo and Herron, among others, ceased his activities 
in behalf of Socialism when war came to, America 7 
April, 1917. Delegate Stedman read to the Serena 


* Pages 147-148, ‘‘ Proceedings National Convention of Socialist 
Party, 1908. 


Ves 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 185 


a letter from Debs which he had received that day. The 
letter follows: 
“Seymour STEDMAN, Chicago, III. 

*“My dear Steddy: Telegram sent by yourself, Wil- 
liams and Berger has been received this moment. I am 
sorry not to be able to comply with your request. The 
Appeal has undertaken certain special work of some im- 
portance on the strength of my being here, and I can- 
not well abandon it at this time. I should be happy, 
of course, to attend the convention and to meet the com- 
rades if the situation were such that I could do so. I 
see that my friends have again been very kind to me in 
this matter of nomination. I had hoped that my name 
would not be mentioned in that connection this year, 
and I have done what I could to discourage it; the rea- 
‘sons for this purely from the party standpoint, seem 
quite apparent tome. As for myself personally, I never 
hhad any ambition along that line. If I do anything 
worthy of keeping my name alive I prefer that it shall 
be done as a private in the ranks and not by having 
‘™my name associated with some public office or with what 
may seem to be the desire of some public office. With 
loving regards, etc., 

*‘T am yours in the same old way, 
‘“RuGENE V. Dess.’’ 

It appears that Stedman had opposed Debs’s nomina- 
tion on the ground that Eugene’s health might be seri- 
‘ously impaired if he were to submit himself again to the 
rigors of another national campaign. 

' On the other hand, Benjamin Hanford, of New York, 
who was one of the most brilliant men the Socialist 
movement of this country has yet produced, and the 
originator of the term ‘‘Jimmie Higgins’’ for those 
who do the hard, grinding work of party building with- 
out thought of reward or recognition, whose services are 
all a matter of love, and who are served by none, arose 


186 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTER 


in the convention and seconded the nomination of Deb 
after reading a letter from him, which follows: 

“* As to my throat and general health, I have improvec 
considerably since I have had a chance to lead something 
like a regular life and get a reasonable amount of rest 
I visited a specialist again a few months ago, and he 


cerned, I never had more to my eredit, if as much. 
the coming campaign, however, I would prefer, if I had 
my choice, to so see what I could do with my pen and giv 
my tongue a rest. I feel as if I can write a campaign 
and make some of the enemy take notice that there are 
Socialists in the field. Now, I will tell you candidl 
just how I feel. I have never refused to do, so far as J 
could, anything the party commanded me to do, an¢ 
never shall. I have taken the nomination under protest, 
but I have no desire to run for office and a positive 
prejudice against the very thought of holding office. 
To obey the commands of the Socialist Party I violate 
a vow made years ago that I would never again be ¢ 
candidate for political office. My whole ambition—and 
I have a goodly stock of it—is to make myself as big 
and as useful as I can, as much opposed to the enemy 
and as much loved by our comrades as any other private 
in the ranks. You need have no fear that I shall shi 
my part in the coming campaign. I shall be in cond 
tion, and I hope there will be no good ground for com 
plaint when the fight is over. 
“*Very sincerely, 
‘‘EuGene V. Derss.’’ 

There was total of 198 votes cast at this conventior 
159 of which were received by Debs. On motion of Dele 
‘gate Victor L. Berger, of Milwaukee, and seconded by 
Delegate Stedman of Chicago, the convention made th 
vote for Debs unanimous. 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 187 


4 _ For a second time Ben Hanford was chosen as Vice- 
: "Presidential nominee. When Debs heard that his old 
} friend and comrade, Hanford, had again been chosen 
for the second post of honor, he wrote to him: 
‘‘Girard, Kansas, May 15, 1908. 
_ Brew Hanrorp, care Socialist Convention, Brand ’s Hall, 
Chicago. 

“Hearty congratulations and handclasps across the 
spaces. The posts of honor assigned us are posts of 
honor only because they are posts of duty and responsi- 
bility. You will vindicate brilliantly the wisdom of the 
convention and I hope at least to keep it from reproach. 
Greetings to the greatest convention ever assembled in 
the United States. Cheers for the revolution. 

. . ‘*HuGcENE V. Dess.’’ 
_ This was followed the same day by a letter accepting 
the nomination, which follows: 
‘ **Girard, Kansas, May 15, 1908. 
“Freperic Heatu, Secretary, Socialist Party Conven- 
tion: 
““My dear Comrades :—Deeply touched by the incom- 
parable honor you have for the third time conferred 
upon me, I accept the nomination for the presidency, 
returning to each of you, to the convention as a whole, 
and to the party at large, my sincere thanks. The hearty 
unanimity with which the nomination is made, and the 
Magnificent spirit in which it is tendered fill me and 
thrill me with inexpressible emotion and arouse within 
me all the latent energy and enthusiasm to serve the 
Socialist Party and the great cause it represents, with 
_all the mental, moral and physical strength of my being. 

“‘Persgqnally, I had earnestly hoped the convention 
would choose otherwise, but as individual desire is sub- 
ordinate to the party will, I can only wish myself 
greater strength and fitness to bear the revolutionary 
banner of the working class you have placed in my 


¥. 


ae 


ERS 


188 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LET 


“Permit me to congratulate you upon the nomir 
of Comrade Hanford, and to express my personal grat 
fication in having a comrade so Ieyal to share in uphold 
ing the proletarian standard. At a later day I shall 
make formal answer to your notification. 

“‘This year the command to advance must be issuet 
to all the hosts of Socialist emancipation. The working 
class of the United States must be aroused this yes 
and made to feel the quickening pulse, the-throbbing 
hope and the stern resolve of the social revolutior 
The greatest opportunity in the history of the Socialis 
movement spreads out before us like a field of glory. 

“The principles of the Socialist Party are resplenden 
with the truths which crown them. Its very name is 
prophetic and its spirit is literal fulfillment in this 
auspicious hour supreme with opportunity. Duty to the 
cause transcends all else, and touching elbows, and hearts 
keeping time to the quick steps of the revolution, 
march beneath the banner (no compromise) to certain 
victory. 

““My soul love and greeting to you all, my comrades. 
My heart is full and overfiowing. With every drop o 
my blood and every fiber of my being I render obedience 
to your command, and offer myself body and soul, ta 
the Socialist Party, the working class and the revolz 
tion. ei 
**Eucene V. Dsss.”’ 

It was the almost unanimous opinion of political ot 
servers and experts of that day—1908—that there had 
never been waged before in this country a political cam 
paign as spectacular and as replete with dramatie ci 
eumstanee, nor one as pregnant and promising of grea 
results as that which Debs carried from one end of thi 
country to the other for sixty days before election. 
The meetings of William H. Taft and William Jennings 
Bryan were largely attended, and both candidates pro- 
voked enthusiasm wherever they appeared, but at the 


va 
i 


‘YY 


{ 
y 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 189 


Debs meetings, no matter where they were held, men, 


women and children fought for vantage points and in 


some sections of the country trampled upon each other 


in their wild determination to clasp the hand or tug at 
the coat sleeve of this ‘‘new Napoleon of the west,’’ 
whose message to his followers was not concerned so 
much with politics and. cure-alls for social ills as it 
was with love, one for another, a plea for universal hap- 
piness and personal kindness, and a solemn command for 
the assertion of manhood and womanhood, and the pro- 
tection for childhood. Like a Savonarola commanding 
his followers to destroy their idols and burn their vani- 
ties, and pay heed only to the word of God, Debs told 
the multitudes who flocked to hear him to bow before 
no king or tyrant, to accept the word of no leader as 
the gospel truth, but to use their heads with the same 


energy as they had for many years used their hands, 


to crown themselves sovereigns in the glory of their 
own manhood. Every speech that he made was di- 
rected to the personality of the individual, and every 
word was struck off from his heart like sparks from 
steel and went straight to the heart of the person, 

Brand Whitlock, former mayor of Toledo, Ohio, and 
United States minister to Belgium, on June 16, 1908, 
commented on the Republican National Convention, as 
follows: 

‘A few weeks ago another convention was held in 


Chicago, not on the Lake Front, nor was there any 
‘parade on the Lake Front. That convention was held 


) 


back in the heart of Chicago, where, perhaps, the misery 
and squalor of our industrial life shows more glaringly 
than in any city in the country. That convention, ac- 


cording to the frugal reports, was disorderly. It was 


a real convention and all real conventions are disor- 
derly. The delegates were intensely in earnest, every 
one had to make a speech, every one had to try to get 


- other men to help him realize his ideals. That was the 


190 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


convention of the Socialist Party. One wonders how 
long it will be before this well-mannered crowd on th 
Lake Front learns of that other convention so much like 
the one forty-eight years ago (Lincoln’s in 1860), and 
begins to inquire what it is all about. To-day in the 
midst of all this conspicuous waste, talking with such 
lack of interest of Taft, and of how Bryan might beat 
him if Bryan were new, it is evident that they do not 
know that there is such a thing as an economic question, 
or a hungry workless man in the world. Didn’t Lincoln 
set men free forty years ago?’’ 

The two major political parties were making much 
ado about the funds contributed by corporations and 
rich individuals to each other’s campaign fund. This 
controversy caused Debs to issue a statement from Terre 
Haute concerning the funds contributed to the Socialist 
treasury : 

‘‘The Socialist Party has always published all re- 
ceipts and expenditures in connection with its political 
campaigns, and this year will be no exception to the 
rule. 

‘‘The campaign fund of the Socialist Party is made 
up almost wholly of the nickels and dimes of the work- | 
ing class, and all contributions are published in the 
official bulletin of the national party at the time they 
are made, and at the close of each campaign due report 
of all receipts and expenditures is made by the campaign - 
committee and the national secretary, copies of which 
are furnished to the party press and the party member- 
ship. Not a dollar so far has been received by the So-— 
cialist Party from any corporation, and not a dollar | 
ever received by it has been used except for the educa- 
tion of the working class. | 

‘*KuGcENE V. Dess.”’ 

The National Executive Committee of the Socialist 
Party, early in July, decided to raise a fund from the 
membership of the party to finance a ‘‘Red Special’’ 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 191 


‘campaign train which would carry Debs into every nook 

and corner of the United States. The train consisted 
of a combined sleeper, observation and dining coach, a 
baggage car and an engine. As the ‘‘Red Special’’ en- 
tered each state local speakers and candidates were taken 
aboard to assist in the work in their states. There was 
a ‘‘Red Special’’ band of music on the train to arouse 
the public as the candidate approached a city or town. 
The baggage car was filled with Socialist literature of 
every description and this was circulated freely through 
the country. ‘‘The Red Special’’ cost the Socialist Party 
$20,000, every penny of which was contributed volun- 
tarily by the membership and sympathizers. 

The Socialist train left Chicago on August 31, for the 
west. Not one town was omitted from its itinerary. 
No sooner had it gotten under steam than the Demo- 
cratic Party newspapers printed stories accusing the 
Republicans of financing the expedition to worry the 
Democrats. This statement was promptly disproved by 
the publication of the names and addresses of persons 
who had contributed toward the enterprise. 

Harry C. Parker, of Philadelphia, was in general 
eharge of the train on its westward sweep. 

Before the ‘‘Red Special’’ started Debs had been 
campaigning in several states of the west, especially 
Kansas. On August 24, he wrote as follows: 

“<The meetings out here are big as all outdoors and 
red hot with enthusiasm. Ye Gods! But these are 
pregnant days! The hosts pour in from all directions 
—men, women, children and babies, and all of them, 
including the babies, are up in arms against the capi- 
talist system. The farmers out here, thousands of them, 
are revolutionary to the core and ripe and ready for 
action. Socialists are nearly as thick out here, and 
quite as strictly strenuous, as the grasshoppers used to 
be. The plutes will need the doctor and the preacher 
when the votes are counted. The ‘Red Special’ is trump. 


192 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


The people are wild about it and the road will be lined 
with the cheering hosts of the proletarian revolution. 
‘*Eueene V. Dess.’’ — 

Debs received a letter from Alexander Law, of the 
National Committee for the Unemployed, asking him to 
address the jobless workers, who would gather in New 
York on September 25. All the presidential candidates 
had been invited to speak before that body. On August 
10 Debs replied from Girard, Kansas, as follows: (9 
‘“‘My dear Sir:—Your favor of the fourth instant 
has been received and noted. Replying, I have to say 
that I am vitally interested in the question of the un- 
employed and appreciate the invitation you extend to 
attend the convention of the unemployed to be held in 
September, but as I shall be engaged in campaign work” 
at that time, it will be impossible for me to join you, 
gladly as I would do so under other circumstances. a 
‘‘Thanking you for your kindness, and hoping that 
your convention may be fruitful of good results, espe- 
cially in opening the eyes of the working class to the 
fact that it is the capitalist system which is responsible 
for unemployment, and that this system must be abol-— 
ished. before the problem can be solved, 
‘‘T remain, yours fraternally, z 

‘‘RuGENE V. Dess.”? ~ 

The Negroes’ National League, through its presiden sh 
Rev. J. Milton Waldron, addressed a letter to Debs” 
asking him to state his position on the Negro question. 
In his reply, dated from Girard, Kansas, June 30, 1908, 
Debs wrote, in part: a 
‘The people of your race are entitled to all the rights” 
and opportunities that other races are entitled to, but 
they have never had them, nor will they ever have then nf 
muder the administration, ct enkesiaas Republican or 
Democratic parties. 
‘Let me say to you eandidly that in the individual 
matter of defeating William H. Taft as the candidate 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 193 


‘of the Republican Party we cannot join you. We So- 
eialists attach no importance to mere individuals in 
political campaigns, and have no sympathy with any 
movement designed to inflict punishment on individual 
candidates for real or fancied wrongs. We are organized 
to overthrow the capitalist system which is maintained 
politically by both the Republican and Democratic par- 
ties, and to establish the Socialist Republic in which all 
men and all women, regardless of race, nationality or 
ereed, May enjoy equal freedom. To accomplish this we 
are not making war upon individuals, but upon a social 
and industrial system, in which individuals, especially 
those prominent in political life, do practically as they 
must to obtain their ends. 

‘<The Brownsville affair, we admit, was disgraceful 
and indefensible; but it cannot be said that it was due 
to race discrimination. At least the outrage cannot be 
supported upon that theory. The officials of the Western 
Federation of Miners were not Negroes, but white men, 
and yet they were kidnaped by conspiracy of Republi- 
ean governors and by sanction of President Roosevelt 
and at the behest of the Mine Owners’ Association. It 
is not a question of race, but a question of class. The 
white working man is no higher in the present social scale 
than is the Negro, and although the prejudice of the one 
against the other is assiduously cultivated by the ruling 
class, that class has no more real regard for a wage 
slave of one color than of another. 

“‘T agree perfectly to what you say about President 
Roosevelt. He is in truth a czar, but whether he is or 
is not makes but little difference, after all, in this capi- 
talist system. The President of our so-called Republic 
has equal power, to say the least, with the Emperor of 
Germany, or the King of England, and, as a matter of 
fact, he makes use of power which neither of these 
Monarchs would dare exercise over their subjects. This 
country is ruled to-day by the President and the Su- 


194 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — 


‘preme Court, and this resolves itself practically into the 
President alone, since Supreme Court judges are crea- 
tures of his appointment. 

‘In this system class rules class and will while the 
system lasts, and this, as I have already indicated, is 
not a race question, but a class question, and when the 
Negroes, the great mass of whom are wage earners, 
develop sufficient intelligence to understand their true 
economic and political interests, they will | join and 
support the Socialist Party, the only political party in” 
the world to-day whose declared purpose is to abolish 
class rule and establish a republic whose fundamental 
principle is the equal rights and freedom of all. 

““Ever since the close of the Civil War the Republi- 
can Party has used the Negro as a political asset. The 
Republican Party cares not one whit more for the Negra 
than does the Democratic Party. . . . The Northern Re. 
publican manufacturer places precisely the same esti- 
mate upon the Negro as the Southern cotton-grower. 
He esteems him for the use he can make of him and the 
surplus value he can extract from his labor power... . 

‘The Socialist Party wants every Negro vote it can 
get, provided it represents the intelligence, dignity and ~ 
honesty of the man who casts it. The Socialist Party 
does not invest in whiskey and cigars as a means of in- 
filuencing the votes of Negroes or others, nor does it 
spend a single cent to influence any man’s vote except 
as that vote can be influenced in an educational 
Way e227 

Failing of a broad-gauged argument upon which they 
might meet the Socialist’s theories, the stump speakers 
of both the major parties accused Debs of belittling the 
flag of the nation, to which accusation he replied 7 
September 5: 

“‘We say that the national flag has been polluted byl 
the plutocracy who have used it to shield themselves in” 
their evil doing. It is not at present the flag of the 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 195 


patriot but has become the flag of predatory wealth, in 
its exploitation of the working class and its ravages upon 
the people generally. This is the only objection the 
Socialists have ever urged against the colors of the 
United States, and in this position they have the indorse- 
ment of every true patriot in the land. It is the corrupt 
and truckling politician who goes to the legislature and 
Congress, either as a so-called representative or as a 
lobbyist to defeat the will of the people, who is the first 
to point to the flag and claim to be a patriot in its 
name.”’ 

At Muscatine, Iowa, Debs addressed 2,000 people. As 
he was going through the train-shed of the depot to 
board the ‘‘Red Special’’ an impressive and pathetic 
scene was enacted. James Carter, an aged employee of 
the Rock Island Railroad, pushed his way through the 
erowds and nudged up alongside of Debs. The tall, 
gaunt man turned swiftly around; there was an instant’s 
hesitation and then Debs threw both his arms around the 
old railroader and pressed him close to his bosom. He 
kissed his seamed face and patted his furrowed cheeks. 
’Gene and Jim had not met for thirty years—since their 
boyhood days when both were working on the Vandalia 
Railroad, in Indiana. In those days both men were 
fired with ambition, and now, in the middle of their 
life’s span they had met again and tears, big and hot, 
rolled down the cheeks of each. 

On his swing around the country at that time, and 
‘before and since, Debs ran across hundreds of old 
American Railway Union men, and together they spun 
their yarns about the old days of great strike in 794. 
Debs went out of his way hundreds of times to visit the 
homes of these old veterans, and he was usually laden 
with gifts for the wife and children of his former com- 
rade. 

On September 3, the Kansas City Times commented 
about Debs’s meeting in that city: 


196 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


‘‘Rugene V. Debs, candidate for President of the 
United States of the Socialist Party, spoke to a crowd: 
of 2,500 to 3,000 persons, all of whom paid an admission 
fee, in Convention Hall last night. Mr. Debs, though 
the greatest spell-binder of the party, is drawing just $3 
a day for conducting his own campaign. The audience 
was composed largely of workingmen, but there were 
many business men who listened attentively to every- 
thing Mr. Debs said. A large number of women were 
also present. i 

‘‘<This is about the time of the year,’ said Debs, 
‘when the orators of the capitalist parties—the Demo- 
erats and Republicans—are coming before you an d 
telling you how intelligent you are—they tell you how 
intelligent you are to keep you ignorant. We tell you 
how ignorant you are to make you intelligent. You 
produce all wealth and have none of it. The capitalist 
class produces no wealth and has all of it. You make 
automobiles and—walk.’ ; 
is rege get run over,’ shouted a voice from the audi-- 
ence.’ q 

Further down the column, the Times said: 

‘*When the ‘Red Special’ bearing Eugene V. Debs anil 
his party reached here at 6:30 o’clock last night there 
were several hundred men and women waiting. They 
swarmed into the cars to see the candidate. But Mr. 
Debs with his secretary had shut himself up in his pri- 
vate office. He.would see no one—and small wonder at 
that, for he had made ten speeches, some of them forty 
minutes in length, since leaving Des Moines at six 
o’clock in the morning. . . . The train was getting more 
behind schedule at each special stop but there was no 
other graceful way out of the predicament when a 
crowd of farmers surrounded the train yelling ‘Debs!” 
At little towns the ‘Red Special’ band tried to put off 
the enthusiasts with a lively rendition of ‘Marseillaise,” 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 197 


but there was nothing doing = that line. The French 
anthem only made them worse.’ 

Several times while the ‘‘Red Special’’ was touring 
the western part of the country Debs issued appeals 
to the membership of the Socialist Party for more funds 
to enable the train to invade the east. Once, at least, 
there seemed to be a likelihood that the ‘‘Red Special’’ 
would have to be abandoned for lack of financial fuel; 
but this discouraging barrier was surmounted and the 
train rolled on to the eastward with its band and cam- 
paigners. On September 29, the train rolled into 
Toledo, Ohio. Thousands of people were at the depot 
to welcome Debs and the ‘‘Red Special,’’? among them 
being Brand Whitlock, who was at that time mayor of 
the city. Mr. Whitlock, who has since become an inter- 
national figure because of the part he played in aiding 
Belgium, not only greeted Debs most cordially, but the 
newspapers of that period report that he contributed five 
dollars to the ‘‘Red Special’’ campaign fund. A tre- 
mendous parade was held in which Mayor Whitlock 
took part, the papers so reported. That evening a rous- 
ing meeting was held at Memorial Hall, which held 
2,000 people. Several overflow meetings were addressed 
by Debs. Congressman Isaac R. Sherwood, of Ohio, ap- 
plauded Debs’s arraignment of the ‘‘System.’’ 

' The Miners’ Magazine for September, 1908, com- 
mented upon the fact that Debs had been refused per- 
mission to speak in the famous Stanford University 
Chapel, in San Francisco. Said the Miners’ Magazine: 

**. . The class which dominates this institution feel 
no generous thrills vibrating their hearts for the class 
whose cause Debs advocates and defends. It is doubtful 
if Christ returned to earth and preached the same doc- 
trines that He proclaimed nineteen hundred years ago 
that He would have been admitted to the chapel of 
Stanford University.’’ 

San Francisco was not the only city, by any means, 


198 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ~ 


‘that made it difficult for Debs to have his hearing be- 
fore the people. In Philadelphia one of the heads of 
the police department tried to raise barriers in the way 
of Debs speaking there. The Philadelphia Socialists 
sought to obtain the Grand Opera House for the Debs 
meeting which was scheduled for October 11th. Charles 
W. Ervin, now editor-in-chief of the New York Call, 
who for many years has been a faithful and_loyal devo- 
tee to the cardinal principles of social and economic jus- 
tice, and personally friendly to Debs, was at that time 
chairman of the Campaign Committee for Philadelphia. 
The manager of the Grand Opera House informed Mr. 
Ervin by letter that Debs could not have the Grand 
Opera House except by order of the Department of 
Public Safety. Mr. Ervin adjusted the matter by hav-— 
ing Debs speak in two smaller halls instead of the 
large one. 4 

Before Debs’s humanistic qualities and kindliness had 
become a matter of almost universal knowledge, and 
before many people knew that every phase and angle 
of his many-sided life was spotless, he was subjected time 
and again to unfounded accusations concerning his pub-— 
lic career. Most of the time Debs did not bother to” 
answer these taunts and calumnies. Like every other 
self-respecting public man, he allowed his life’s record” 
to stand as the answer to those who would revile him 
and bear false witness against him. In 1908 when he 
was assailed by some of his political adversaries, the 
Socialist National Campaign Committee at Chicago — 
caused to be published in the Socialist press of the 
country a letter written the year before by the mayor of 
Terre Haute, Indiana, Debs’s home city. The letter 
follows: 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 199 


Executive Department 
City of Terre Haute, Indiana 
James Lyons, Mayor 
“‘Mebruary 27, 1907. 
““Mr. JOHN CUTHBERTSON, 
“*Crooked Lake, Michigan. 

“‘Dear Sir:—Yours of the 24th inst. received request- 
ing information without any political bias as to the 
standing of Kugene V. Debs in this community. 

_ “In reply, will state that while the overwhelming ma- 
jority of the people here are opposed to the social and 
economic theories of Mr. Debs, that there is not perhaps 
a single man in this city who enjoys to a greater degree 
than Mr. Debs the affection, love and profound respect 
of the entire community. 

“‘He is cultured, brilliant, eloquent, scholarly and 
companionable, loveable in his relations with his fellow- 
man. At home he is known as ’Gene, and that perhaps 
indicates our feeling towards him as a man, independent 
of his political views. 

‘‘He numbers his friends and associates among all 
classes, rich and poor, and some of the richest men here, 
people who by very instinct are bitter against Socialism, 
are warm personal friends of Mr. Debs. 

“‘His personal life is spotless and he enjoys a beautiful 
home life. Few public men have been more persistently 
and cruelly misrepresented by the press of the country. 

‘‘When such men as James Whitcomb Riley, the 
Hoosier Poet, comes to Terre Haute, he is always the 
guest of Mr. Debs. 

“Tf you care to use this letter in any way for pub- 
lication, you are at liberty to do so. Every word I have 
written, and I am not in sympathy with Mr. Debs’s 
views on Socialism, I know would be heartily indorsed 
by the people of this city. | Very respectfully, 

‘‘James Lyons, 
**Mayor.”’ 


200 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


On October 2, 1908, the ‘‘Red Special’? arrived in 
New York state, and this was cause for great demonstra- 
tions in every city and town. At Rochester, for in- 
stance, 5,000 people struggled for paid admission into 
Convention Hall. Many hundreds more were unable to © 
edge their way inside. Debs often falls into epigrams 
in his speeches, as, for instance, at Rochester when he 
said: mi 

““The capitalist refers to you as caw. avai farm 
hands, factory hands, machine hands—hands, hands! 
You are the horny-handed sons of toil. If you ought 
to be proud of your hands the capitalist ought to be 
ashamed of his. q 

‘**A capitalist would feel insulted if you called him a 
hand. He’s a oan The trouble is he owns his head © 
and your hands.’ 

Four days before Debs spoke at the Hippodrome in i 
New York City every seat in the great amphitheater was 4 
sold. .One of the newspapers of New York City in com- — 
menting on the meeting, said: ) 

‘‘With a deafening roar 10,000 men and women trans- — 
formed the interior of the Hippodrome into a moun-— 
tainous red-capped wave of revolution that whistled ~ 
and screamed for Socialism when Eugene V. Debs ap- 
peared and answered the ery of humanity. For twenty- — 
five minutes the full-lunged protest gave tongue to the a 
protest ae the ‘System’ in an unparalleled demon- © 
stration.’ 4 

‘“What was deemed still more remarkable about the a 
meeting,’’ spoke another newspaper, ‘‘was that all these — 
people had paid from 15 cents to 50 cents for admission. — 
No other pees party than the Socialist could do thee 
same thing.’’ 4 

After this giant meeting had closed Debs dodged back il 
of the stage to the exit so quickly that the audience did — 
not know he was escaping. They filed into the street, — 
and several thousand enthusiasts struggled to keep his © 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 201 


— 


4 waiting automobile from turning a wheel toward his 
_ hotel. They wanted to meet the man himself. They 
_ demanded to touch the hand of the human dynamo 
_ that had ignited the latent moral and spiritual powers 
_ within them, transfiguring them from mere workaday 
_ automatons into flaming symbols of revolt. 

Joshua Wanhope, an old sailor, and one of the most 

brilliant writers of the Socialist movement, had been 
_ campaigning with Debs on the “‘Red Special’’ as candi- 
date for governor of New York. Of the Hippodrome 
meeting Wanhope said: 

“If Roosevelt were here I believe he would remark, 
with amazement, upon the astonishing increase of ‘un- 
desirable citizens!’ It might impress Mr. Gompers with 
the untruth of his assertion as to Debs being the Apostle 

_ of Failure. This audience does not look like failure, 
or, if it does, the English language needs a new dic- 
tionary. I never was an optimist. But unless all signs 

fail, this generation is not going to pass until we see 

_ Socialism realized.’’ 

One of the best speeches of Debs’s career was deliv- 

ered at that Hippodrome meeting. We should like to 
set down here a few of the salient points which he de- 

_ veloped in his oration: 


* THE PASSING OF CAPITALISM 


“*.. . Capitalism has fulfilled its mission, for the 
capitalist class can no longer control the productive 
forces, nor manage industry, nor give employment to 
_ the workers. And so the historic mission of this move- 

_ ment is to abolish capitalism, based upon private own- 
ership, and recognize society upon a basis of collective 
_ ownership of the means of production and distribu- 
tion. This change is coming just as certain as I stand 
in your presence. It will come as soon as you are ready 
for it, and you will be ready for it just as soon as you 
y understand what Socialism means. 


‘ 


202 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS — 


** INDIVIDUALITY 


. You read in the newspapers that under Social- 
ism you will be reduced to the dead level of degradation. | 
You are there now. They tell you that Socialism will 
destroy your individuality. You haven’t got any. The 
wage slave has no individuality. What is individuality? : 
It is the expression unhampered of the~individual’s 
mental and moral and spiritual qualities. It is the hu- 
man being in full bloom. The thirty million wage work- 
ers who are dependent upon the capitalist system for 
work are walking apologies, most of them. They have 
hinges in their knees. They doff their hats in the pres- 
ence of a two by four boss. They are repressed and 
cramped and their aspirations are stifled, because they 
have got to beg for work, and therefor they have to beg 

to live, and they have no individuality. | 


cc 


* BREAKING UP THE FAMILY 


‘““They tell you that Socialism would break up the 
family, destroy the home. There are 80,000 divorces a 
year under capitalism. Capitalism destroys the family 
all over this country in all the circling hours of the 
day and night. How about the families of the five mil- — 
lion who have no work? Who have got to leave their 
families, or their huts, or their hovels, or their lairs in 
a vain search somewhere else for other masters, and © 
after they reach a point four or five hundred miles” 
away from home and their last penny is gone and their 
clothes are seedy they receive a letter from home. Ob- — 
serve them closely as they read it; you will find the tears 
coursing down their cheeks. The wife reports that the 
rent is due and that she and the children are about to — 
be evicted and put upon the street. The children are 
hunery. These men become tramps. Their lives are 
destroyed, their homes are wrecked, and the happney 
of all these people is wrecked. 


‘ 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 203 


~ THE FRUIT OF CAPITALISM 


“*Nothing is certain in this system except uncertainty. 
You may have $50,000 and die in an almshouse and sleep 
your last sleep in a Potter’s field. If you are a work- 
ingman and you have a little girl of eight or ten, and 
your wage is small, or you are out of a job at the very 
age when this child ought to be under the care of a 
loving mother and have a comfortable home, and be out 
in the sunlight and have wholesome food—and nothing 
is so easily produced—the child is under the hunger 
whip of capitalism, and at eight or ten she has got to 
go to a mill or a factory and she stands beside the ma- 
chine all day long. She feeds the machine. The ma- 
chine starves her. If it be written in the book of fate 
that that blue-eyed child of yours that you love far 
more than you do your own life . . . shall perish in a 
brothel hell, I want you to know that you are respon- 
sible for it if you support this System. 


‘AN OBLIGATION 


««.. . You and I who are on earth to-day are under 


great obligation to the splendid men, the magnificent 
women, who made sacrifices that we might enjoy some 
degree of liberty, some degree of civilization. We can 
only discharge that obligation by doing or trying to do 
something in the interest of those who are to come after 
us. It ought to be the high mission of every man and 
woman to do something to make it possible for some 
child to come to his or to her grave and place a flower 
where he or she sleeps and say, ‘This world is better 


_and brighter for me because of your having been here.’ 


THE END OF WARS 


«¢ .. With the end of industrial and commercial 


competition comes the end of war, and with the begin- 


_ ning of world-wide codperation comes the inauguration 


204 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS” ‘ 


of the reign of peace on earth and good will toward all : 
men. So that when this movement sweeps into power, 
and establishes an industrial democracy, every man will © 
have the inalienable right to work, will receive what he © 
produces, may stand forth a free man, enjoy the fruit — 


of his labor, have a comfortable home, a happy wife, 


his children at play or at school; and in that hour the : 


badge of labor will be the only badge of nobility.’’ 


On October 23, 1908, Debs spoke at Evansville, In- — 
diana. Mr. Taft made a speech in the same city that © 
night and the newspapers of that city commented upon ~ 


the fact that more people had paid an admission fee to 


— 


hear Debs than those who went to hear Mr. Taft at a 


free meeting. 


On the eve of the national election in 1908, October © 
28, the national Socialist movement felt itself consider- ~ 
ably strengthened by the fact that Charles Edward Rus- 
sell, noted magazine writer and author of several books ~ 


on social and economic subjects, definitely allied himself 
with the Socialist Party by applying for membership. 
“‘Tt seems to me that essential conditions have grown 
worse instead of better,’’ said Mr. Russell. ‘‘The So- 


cialist Party is the only party that promises to deal © 
adequately with these conditions, hence all my sympa- — 


7 


thies are with the Socialist Party.’’ At the same time, 
Lincoln Steffens, radical American publicist, while not 


allying himself with the party, in a public statement to 


the press, urged the people to support Debs for Presi- 


dent and the other Socialist candidates. Mr. Russell, in x 
1916, broke away from the Socialist Party on the war ~ 


question, favoring American preparedness for battle 


with Germany, while the major sentiment in the party 
was pacifistic at that time. Debs was one of the first ~ 
persons to come to Mr. Russell’s defense in a statement 
in the party’s press, saying that while he heartily dis- 


agreed with Mr. Russell’s views on preparedness and 


the part America should play in the World War, yet he q 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS = 205 


acknowledged the courage and candor that Mr. Russell 
had displayed in stating his position in face of almost a 
hundred per cent. opposition of his party. 

One of the last campaign speeches that Debs made 
in that year was at Woodstock, Illinois, the town in 
which he had served a six-months’ jail sentence thirteen 
years before for contempt of court in connection with 
the American Railway Union strike. Debs spoke from 
the steps of the jail to half a thousand people, among 
whom was Mr. Eckert, who was Debs’s jailer in 1895. 
Debs referred to the jail as the college where he had 
been educated, and there was no trace of bitterness in 
his words as he showed a few of his friends the cell 
where he had been confined as a defiant labor unionist. 

The last campaign speech that Debs made that year 
was in Chicago, the day before election, in the Seventh 
Regiment Armory, where a crowd estimated at 16,000 
people struggled to hear him. Before the meeting, there 
was a parade in which 14,000 Chicago workers marched 
along a route extending two miles. Debs, on foot, 
marched at the head of this great labor procession, which 
recalled the distant days when a similar demonstra- 
tion had been made in his honor upon his release from 
Woodstock Jail. 

At his home in Terre Haute, surrounded by his wife 
and his brother Theodore, members of his immediate 
family and a few friends, Debs, on election night, was. 
enjoying his first rest in many arduous months. His 
was not the concern which must have possessed Mr. Taft 
and Mr. Bryan, for he knew well enough he had not been 
elected. He had not campaigned for that purpose. 
Had the miracle of miracles happened, and he had 
found himself actually the President-elect there would 
not have been an unhappier man than he, for that office 
would have imposed upon him the duty of performing 
many unkind and questionable, if subtle, acts such as 
must needs be performed by any public officer, no mat- 


nv 


206 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ~ 


ter how high-spirited he may be, and ’Gene Debs simply P 
could not do an unkind thing or perform any act that 
would redound to the injury of a human being—he 
could not do that, not even to be President of the © 


United States. But he had waged an educational cam- 
paign for Socialism, the like which this country had 


never seen before. More than that, he had left a trail 
of light wherever he had gone, and had brought cheer 


and hope to the workers, 


Before the votes were even counted he telegraphed to — 


the party press a statement in the course of which he 
said: 


campaign. It expressed the true spirit of Socialist com- 
radeship, which is the making of our movement, and 


‘‘The campaign is ended, and my very first thought is — 
of the kindness shown me and the loyal support given — 
me in every part of the country. While at times the 
exactions were trying, I was sustained every hour by the - 
loving care and unflagging support of comrades. To 
me this was the beautiful and satisfying feature of the © 


which will sustain it through every ordeal until it is 4 


finally triumphant.”’ 


Despite the tremendous meetings, wild enthusiasm and — 


the ‘‘Red Special,’’ the Debs vote in 1908 showed but a 


slight increase over that of four years before. The 


Socialist vote in 1908 was 420,973.* 


The 1912 convention of the Socialist Party, which was 


held at Indianapolis, was even more disorderly, if by 
that term enthusiasm is implied, than Brand Whitlock 


had discovered at the 1908 convention in Chicago. Dur-— 


ing those four years the Industrial Workers of the 
World had grown to be an organization wielding con- 
siderable influence in industries that employed large 


se 


numbers of unskilled workers, and poorly paid skilled — 


ones. Debs had been one of the leading spirits in the 
initial organization of the I. W. W. in 1905. Even be- 


-* Figures from the ‘‘ World Almanac and Encyelopedia,’’ 1919. 


FOUR PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS 207 


fore that period he had taken his stand for industrial 
unionism as against trade unionism. In 1908 the 
I. W. W. eliminated the political clause from its Pre- 
amble, an act which Debs termed ‘‘a monstrous blun- 
der.”’** Despite his disagreement with the Chicago fac- 
tion of the I. W. W., who were non-political, Debs con- 
tinued to entertain a strong regard for the I. W. W. 
movement generally because of its uncompromising at- 
titude on all economic and industrial questions affecting 
the real wage earners of America. 

When the delegates assembled in 1912 at Indianapolis 
it was apparent that a serious division would come in 
the party because of the I. W. W., who counted among 
its membership many Socialists. The conservative wing 
of the party maintained that the I. W. W. was a de- 
structive organization because it openly advocated ‘‘sa- 
botage’’ and ‘‘direct action’’ against employers, and, 
moreover, discouraged political action. William D. 
Haywood, who was a member of the National Executive 
Committee of the Socialist Party, and at the same 
time active in the councils of the I. W. W., led the fight 
of ‘‘the Reds’’ in that convention. Despite distinct 
division in the convention between these two elements, 
when the time came for choosing a presidential candi- 
date, it was a foregone conclusion that Debs would be 
nominated for the fourth consecutive time. Both sides 
could, and did, accommodate their tactical differences, 
for both factions knew that Debs, more than any other 
man in the American labor movement, stood solidly and 
squarely for the complete overthrow of the capitalist 
system by both industrial and political methods, intelli- 
gently and peaceably applied, and in the final analysis 
that was the aim of both the I. W. W. and the Socialist 
Party. 

As one observer at the convention put it, ‘‘The next 


_ *Page 252, ‘‘The I. W. W., A Study of American Syndicalism,’’ 
by Paul Frederick Brissenden. 


| 


. 


208 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTER } 


business was the nomination for president on the So- 
cialist ticket, and a roll call being ordered, Dan Hogan 
got a chance to yell for Debs. After that there was 
nothing to it. It was clearly evident that both sides 
were ready to get together on Debs.’’* The total vote 
of the delegates for President showed 165 for Debs; 5¢ 
for Emil Seidel, former Socialist mayor of Milwaukee 
Wisconsin, and 54 for Charles Edward Russell, of Nev 
York. Mr. Seidel was chosen Vice-Presidential nominee 
Mr. Russell declining to accept the nomination. 

Debs made a whirlwind campaign in 1912, with three 
adversaries, President Taft, Woodrow Wilson and Theo 
dore Roosevelt. When the votes were counted Debs had 
polled 897,011,+ more than doubling his vote in 1908 

At this moment, with Debs in a prison eell, he i 
again being talked of in the Socialist press, as the party’ 
choice for President in 1920. ‘‘We will run him for th 
White House from his prison cell in Atlanta,’’? some of 
his followers assert, arguing that if Debs is still a pris- 
oner during the next campaign that fact would make 
him a highly dramatic figure in the political equation, 

* Page 827, International Socialist Review, June, 1912. » 

+ Figures from the ‘‘ World Almanac and Encyelopedia,’’ 19 9 ; 


CHAPTER IX 
LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 


£\OD was feeling mighty good when he made ’Gene 
. Debs, and he didn’t have anything else to do all 
day,’’ wrote James Whitcomb Riley, the ‘‘ Hoosier 
Poet.”’ 

The great minds and tender hearts of America have 
long been attracted to Debs, and this is especially true 
of the poets. It is extremely doubtful if any other 
single American, not excepting Lincoln, has inspired 
the poets of his native country more than ’Gene Debs. 
We are not speaking now of the Socialist poets—persons 
of his own political faith and economic creed—but rather 
of those singers, past and present, who have brought 
laughter and tears to the public generally. Debs has 
at one time or another been linked with the best and 
most famous of them by silver threads of fellowship. 
One of the earliest of those was Riley. Debs soon per- 
ceived the genius of the Indianian. Away back in those 
early years—the eighties—when he was tramping the 
country trying to organize the railroad firemen he found 
time to drop off at Indianapolis to see Riley. The poet 
was not at home. But Debs arranged with the poet’s 
manager to have him come to Terre Haute. Debs has 
told this story himself, and we shall let him tell it now: 
“The first appearance of the Hoosier Poet in our 
city was anything but a shining success, although the 
poet gave a brilliant exhibition of his wonderful powers 
as a mimie and as an impersonator of the characters 
sketched in his poems and studies. The entertainment 
was given in the old Dowling Hall, and there was a 
painfully diminutive attendance. 

209 


210 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


‘Riley himself had more than measured up to ex 
pectations. He was, indeed, a delicious treat to thos 
who could appreciate his quaint humor, his melting 
pathos, his poetic imagery and his flawless, faithful im 
personation. Fis hoosier farmer was fresh from the 
soil, a breathing, boasting, homespun reality. His dan- 
dified schoolmaster teaching a country class was the 
very perfection of mimic art, while his child-stories, told 
in their own simple, guileless fashion and accentuated 
with their own eager, impulsive gestures, were too mar- 
velously true to nature to admit even of the faintest 
suspicion that, in heart and imagination, the poet had 
outgrown his own Elysian childhood. 

“‘Surely, I argued to myself that night, this settles 
» the question of Riley’s genius, and never again will the 
God-gifted Hoosier Poet be humiliated by so paltry an 
audience in Terre Haute. On his next visit he will 
without doubt be greeted by an overflowing house and 
given a rapturous ovation. 5 

‘‘But alas! the second audience was even smaller than 
the first. My surprise and mortification may be im- 
agined. But I was more than ever determined that the 
people of Terre Haute should see James Whitcomb 
Riley and realize that a poet had sprung up out of their 
own soil—a native wild flower at their very feet—whose 
fame would spread all over the land and beyond the 
seas to the most distant shores. A third attempt resulted 
in another dismal failure.’’ q 

Debs says that it was not until some few years later 
that Riley, who had met Bill Nye, whose fame as a 
humorous philosopher was then in the ascendant, was 
invited at the instance of the latter to appear before the 
assembled authors and their guests at their national 
entertainment held at the Academy of Music in New 
York. 4 

‘‘To be sure,’’ says Debs, ‘‘he had already received 
a letter from Longfellow, highly commending a poem 


LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 211 


hich chanced to come under the eye of the elder poet, 
but his fame was chiefly confined to his native state and 
even there to limited circles. But when he rendered 
his dialect masterpiece, ‘When the Frost Is on the 
Punkin,’ in his own inimitable style, he thrilled with 
ecstasy the cold and critical literary audience which 
had been surfeited with dignified and prosaic discourse, 
and the house echoed and reéchoed with excited ap- 
plause.’’ 
 “T remember once asking Riley if his work came 
easy,’’ Debs said, ‘‘and his witty answer came back to 
me: ‘Easy! I should say not. It’s like grinding sau- 
Sage meat with bones in it.’’ On another occasion Debs 
asked Riley if he had worked very hard over a certain 
task he had performed and if he felt tired when he had 
finished it. 

**T felt when I had got through with that job as if I 
had given birth to a rough-shod colt.’’ 

For many years Debs and the Hoosier Poet exchanged 
visits between Terre Haute and Indianapolis. Riley 
lived in the latter city. Following one of Debs’s visits to 
Riley he had sent the poet some roses of which he was 
passionately fond. Then came this letter from Riley: 

*“Dear Debs:—Do you think I’ve entirely forgotten 
all I owe you? No: that query is gratuitous, and knowl- 
edge of your loyalty throughout the past forbids all 
affection of questioning it now. But I’ve been anything 
but a well man for a long, long time, and in consequence 
I’ve simply been deprived of the pleasure of expressing 
to you, until now, my ripest, richest gratitude for your 
recent floral remembrance. Tom Moore sings in effect,— 


** You may break the little bench-legg’d poet if you will, 
But the scent of Debs’s basket of roses will cling round 
him still!’ 


_ “May this find you as glad at heart as your gift made 
me, and may your gentle interest in all human kind never 


212 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


wax nor wane though all the stars of heaven keep u 
their specialty. My love to you—your brother, and al 
friends, particularly Ben Cox. i 
““Affectionately as always yours, 4 

**J. W. Rivzy.’’ 

The same visit of Debs to Riley and the same bunch of 
roses inspired the poet to sing of ‘‘Them Flowers,” 
dedicating his song ‘‘To My Good Friend Eugene V. 
Debs.’’ This is the last of three stanzas of the poem: © 


**You see, it’s like this, what his weaknesses is,— 
Them flowers makes him think of the days 

Of his innocent youth, that mother o’ his, 
And the roses that she us’t to raise: — 

So here, all alone with the roses you send— 
Bein’ sick and all trimbly and faint,— 

My eyes is—my eyes is—my eyes is—old friend— 
Is a-leakin’—I’m blamed if they ain’t! 7’ 


*“Go, search the earth from end to end, 
And where’s a better all-round friend 
Than Eugene Debs?—a man that stands 
And jest holds out in his two hands 

As warm a heart as ever beat 

Betwixt here and the Mercy Seat!’’ 


Late in the life of Wendell Phillips, and early in 
life of Debs, the two men met. The suns and sorrows 
of many years had already shed their light and shadow 
upon the head of the great orator and apostle of human 
liberty, while the other man, much younger, was yet to 
come through the sunrise and twilight of the years 
would bring to him triumph and travail. It was m 
1878, and Debs was already touching elbows with the 
protagonists of revolt and the active and intellectual 
spirits of his day. Debs had invited Wendell Philli DS 
to come to Terre Haute to lecture. The meeting was 
poorly attended. As chairman of the lecture committee 
it fell to Debs to pay the lecturer his fee. The audier oe 


LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 213 


not been large and the financial loss was consider- 
able. “‘Mr. Phillips felt this keenly, and it plainly dis- 
him not a little,’’ Debs wrote of the incident 
many years later. ‘‘ ‘Please take back part of the fee 
to cover your loss,’ he said to me in the kindest possible 
way, when I placed the money in his hands. 
_ ***No, Mr. Phillips,’ I said, ‘you have earned it, it 
is yours and you must keep it. If we had come out 
ahead you would have accepted no more than your 
fee and we cannot consent to your accepting less than 
the stipulated amount.’ He generously insisted upon 
handing back part of the money, but it was as per- 
sistently declined, and he consented at last, reluctantly, 
to keep it. Behind the gentleman I could visualize the 
man, the warrior, the liberator, the humanitarian, the 
lover of his kind. I did not look upon him with awe, but 
with reverence and love. He had fought for me and my 
glass with all his strength of body and soul his whole 
life long. He had been hated, denounced, and socially 
exiled that I and mine might live and enjoy, aspire and 
fulfill, and here he stood, and with my own eyes I could 
now behold the man, meditate upon his greatness, and 
find inspiration in his noble example.”’ 
_ It was in that same period that Debs met Robert G. 
Ingersoll. As one of the prime movers of the activities 
of the Occidental Literary Club in Terre Haute, Debs 
invited Ingersoll to lecture under the club’s auspices. 
The hall in which the meeting was held was packed to 
the doors. Ingersoll’s subject was ‘‘The Liberty of 
Man, Woman and Child.’’ Debs introduced the famous 
orator to the audience. 
t **Never until that night had I heard real oratory; 
never before had I listened enthralled to such a flow of 
oe nce, ”? wrote Debs in his “‘ Recollections 

Ingersoll. 

_ **The speaker was in his prime, not yet forty-five, tall, 
he graceful and commanding, the perfect picture 


a 


214 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


of the beau ideal of his art. Never can I forget his 
features, his expressive eyes, his mellifluous voice, uf 
easy, graceful gestures, and his commanding oratorie I 
powers. He rippled along softly as a meadow brook or 
he echoed with the thunder of some mighty cataract. 
He pleaded for every right and protested against every 
wrong. His words fell as pearls in sunshine from his 
inspired lips and his impassioned periods.glowed with 
the fervid enthusiasm of their thrice-eloquent author.” 
Debs tells how he happened to be in Ingersoll’s room in 
an Indianapolis hotel when the latter received a telegram 
requesting him to deliver a lecture in Philadelphia for 
the benefit of Walt Whitman, ‘‘and I can still see his 
fine features light up as he said, ‘Certainly I will. It 
will give me real pleasure to be of service to dear Old 
Walt.’’’ On another occasion Ingersoll visited Terre 
Haute again and Debs walked with him to the railroad 
station. When the train came and Ingersoll got aboard 
Debs made up his mind in an instant to go along and 
swung on, riding with him to Cincinnati. 

““It was while he was being thus shamefully malienel 
misrepresented and persecuted for denying that God 
was a monster and that a roaring hell awaited most of 
his children, that his calm courage, his serene self 
reliance, and his eloquent and fearless espousal of the 
truth as he saw it, enlisted my sympathy,’’ says Debs 
in his ‘‘Recollections.’’* ‘‘Hie stood his ground alone 
and fought his fight without compromise to the end. I 
can never forget how his heroic spirit stirred me; how I 
felt myself thrilled and inspired by his flaming appeal 
and impassioned eloquence. He did more than any other 
man, living or dead, to put out the fires and fears of 
hell and rid the world of superstition. Scarcely any one 
outside of an asylum any longer believes in the bar- 
barous dogma of an everlasting torture chamber. The 
Reverend Billy Sunday is one of the few monuments of 

* Pearson’s Magazine, 1915. 


LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 215. 


the stone-age of theology. He plagiarizes Ingersoll to 
fan the dying embers into flame again and to keep sal- 
vation on a sound and paying commercial basis. 

“‘Robert Ingersoll could without doubt have been 
President of the United States. But not for one mo- 
ment was he tempted by the lure of political prefer- 
ment. The highest office the people had to bestow ap- 
peared contemptible to him because he knew it could 
be obtained only at the politician’s price of manhood 
and self-respect.”’ 

For a number of years Ingersoll’s birthday, August 
11, was the occasion of a letter or telegram of congratula- 
tion from Debs and his family. Ingersoll wrote in 
acknowledgment of one of these: 

Walton, 
Dobb’s Ferry-on-Hudson, 
August 12, ’92. 
**My pEAR Mr. Dess: 

*‘A thousand thanks for your beautiful telegram. 
The years are growing short. Time seems in a hurry 
to bring the birthday around. Well, all we can do is 
to get what good we can out of the days that pass. 


Hach moment is a bee that flies 
With swift and unreturning wing, 
Giving its honey to the wise, 
And to the fool its poison sting. 


“‘T hope that you and yours will have honey all your 
lives. We all send best regards to your father and 
mother—to your sisters and to Mrs. Debs and yourself. 
In spite of the hot weather we are all perfectly well— 
including the baby. 

‘With more thanks for your kindness, I remain, 

*“Yours always, 
““R. G. INGERSOLL.’’ 

“‘Mrs. Ingersoll says—‘Give my love to all’—and so 
» say I.’’ 


216 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


Debs met John Swinton, the famous radical American 
journalist, in the days of the Pullman strike. Swinton 
had been one of the staunchest champions of the rail- 
_ road workers. ‘‘He stood face to face with Wall Street,’’ 
wrote Debs of him, ‘‘and charged it with infamous 
crimes, and when John Swinton spoke the people lis- 
tened.”’ 

Swinton had enjoyed the friendship of Horace Greeley, 
Charles A. Dana, the elder James Gordon Bennett and 
other notable journalists of that period. He was at one 
time or another editor and chief editorial writer of the 
principal New York daily newspapers. But he was fear- 
less and courageous, and he saw beneath superficial in- 
ferences. That might explain his early attraction to 
Debs. Swinton wrote a book during the Pullman strike, 
‘Striking for Life; or Labor’s Side of the Labor Ques- 
tion.’’? Like many another sincere thinker and friend of 
the people, Swinton died in poverty when he might have 
acquired riches and the plaudits of the public. ‘‘He was 
truly great,’’ wrote Debs of him, ‘‘and uncompromising- 
ly honest, scorning to barter his principles and convic- 
tions for a gilded cage and a life-ease of pampered self- 
indulgence to soften his brain, eat out his heart, and 
petrify his soul. 

‘‘T can still hear him as he held my hand in his 
humble fiat in New York, as he put me through a course 
of questioning as to how much I could stand for the sake 
of labor: ‘They’ll break your heart.’ When I an- 
swered, ‘I’ll not let ’em,’ he said, ‘Bravo!’ ’’ 

The very thing that made the rich and powerful and 
the ignorant hate and condemn Debs in those years of 
industrial turmoil endeared him to the heart of John! 
Swinton. A fine eulogy of Debs by Swinton was in- 
spired by the former’s imprisonment in a Chicago jail 
in those days. This he included in his book: 

“‘T am not afraid thus to praise Eugene Victor Debs, 
though he is a new figure in the gallery of my statuary. 


a Det ee eee 


LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 217 


Bi praise him though he be a victim of Grosseup’s ruth- 


_less law; though he has been assailed by Cleveland and 


_ Olney, Pullman and Egan, Schofield and Miles, by the 


rapacious corporations, the dastardly plutocracy, the 


_Sodomite preachers, the Satanic press, and our bribe- 


taking Congressmen. I praise him, though he is in 


_ prison.”’ 


On July 5, 1894, Swinton wrote to Debs as follows: 

““You are waging a Napoleonic battle amidst the ad- 
miration of millions. God give you the victory for the 
sake of all mankind. . . . I wrote to President Cleveland 
three days ago. Be strong, Brother Debs.”’ 

While Debs was in jail at Woodstock, Swinton wrote 
on July 17, 1895: 

““You do not seem to have been aware that I was in 


_ the prison with you by day and by night, during the 


past month. Never a word have you spoken to me, 
though you were in my company. ‘Not a mutineer walks 


handeuffed into jail but I am handenuffed to him and walk 


by his side.’ I have not at any time thought you cared 
for my praises, so I shall not praise you now. But I 
believe you are of stout heart, and I must hope you are 
not depressed in spirit. Be strong! I know you will 
be faithful unto death. I send you my best love. 
P. S.—Sunday of this week was the anniversary of the 


_ Fall of the Bastile.’’ 


In 1897, when Swinton learned that the Railroad 
Managers’ Association were determined to stamp out of 
industrial life the American Railway Union, and that 
their detectives were dogging the footsteps of Debs day 
and night, he wrote on June 30: 

*‘The strength of your faith, the liveliness of your 
hopes, the persistency of your valor, the breadth of your 
thought, and the energy of your genius fill me with 


admiration. These things belong to that kind of Amer- 
_iecanism which is ever regenerative.”’ 


Debs was forever paying tribute and homage to the 


218 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


heroes and martyrs of his country. His writings and — 
his letters are filled with words of kindness and gentle — 
thoughts for those who have struggled to make this 
planet a better and a brighter place. Of Swinton he 
wrote: 

“The world owes more, far more, to John Swinton 
than it knows or perhaps ever can know. He was one 
of the real heroes of American history. He-lived and 
labored wholly for his fellowmen. He struggled bravely 
with all the adverse fates and forces that others might 
be spared the pains and privations that fell to his lot 
and have life richer and more abundant. Aye, he fought 
as heroically and unselfishly for humanity as any man 
that ever won the crown of martyrdom.”’ i 

Debs delights in reminiscencing about Eugene Field, 
the poet and humorist. These choice spirits first met 
in April, 1893, and although their personal attachment 
endured only for a short year, Field dying suddenly in 
his forty-fourth year, in 1894, Debs owns that he never 
had a truer friend. 

Within a few hours after Debs and Field first met, 
the poet returned with copies of his books beautifully 
inscribed and these are now among the treasured posses- 
sions in Debs’s library. Debs writes of Field’s life in 
the Rockies :* 

“‘Hugene Field was never more at home than among 
these sturdy pioneers who opened the treasure chambers 
of the Rocky Mountains and scattered their gleaming 
secrets broadcast over the continent. They were after 
his own heart and he rejoiced like the big boy he was, 
in having found his way to the golden west and for 
living for once among God’s own people.. No wonder 
the change came upon him like a revelation and attuned 
his muse to the sweet minstrelsy that was soon to carry 
his name back to the Hampshire Hills where he had 


* Pearson’s Magazine. 


LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 219 


spent his boyhood and echo his fame to the remotest 
parts of the country.”’ 

Field once came to Terre Haute with George W. 
Cable, the Southern novelist. Debs says that the opera 
house was crowded and Field captured the audience 
by his simplicity in reciting his charming bits of child- 
hood rime. ‘‘He had wonderful dramatic resources,’’ 
says Debs, ‘‘and his pathetic passages moved his audi- 
ence to tears.’’ At the close of the entertainment Field, 
who was the guest of Debs and his family during his 
stay in Terre Haute, was invited to a friend’s house, 
‘fand here occurred an incident that revealed his pas- 
sionate love for children of whom a number were in 
attendance,’’ says Debs. 

“After a time the little folks withdrew to another 

room to seek their own enjoyment. Not long afterwards, 
Field also disappeared. The reason soon became ap- 
parent. -Peals of laughter issued from the adjoining 
room. Hilarity was evidently at high tide in the child- 
world. And no wonder. Field had gotten among them 
_and was both ring-master and clown of the show, and 
when the door was opened he was found minus his dress 
coat, down on the floor on all fours, and cutting such 
antics as made the little folks scream with delight.’’ 
_ Among the messages that Debs received from his 
many friends while he was imprisoned at Woodstock 
in 1895 came one from Eugene Field. Here is the 
note: 

““Now that you are settled in your summer quarters 
I shall soon be out to see you.’’ But the visit was never 
made, for Field went to bed soon after and never got up. 

It would require the writing of another book to at- 
tempt to tell of the number of libertarians and world 
lovers about whom Debs has written and paid tribute 
in his speeches, and to record the thousands of testi- 
monials that have been written and spoken in appre- 
ciation of his own life and works. His private mail 


220 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


in Terre Haute is normally a very large one, and since 


his arrest, trial and imprisonment under the Espionage — 


Act he has been literally swamped with letters praising — 


his courage and devotion to his principles from people 
in all walks of life. At his home, Theodore Debs, with 


the aid of several secretaries, has been kept busy day 


and night answering these thousands of letters in which 
the authors have pledged their money, and even their 
lives to the cause for which Debs stands. 


The world has a habit of estimating a public man, ~ 


not upon his record as a diplomatist, or in his dealings 
with state affairs, no matter how brilliantly and success- 
fully he might have executed the arduous tasks set be- 
fore him, but it searches his career as a public servant 
to learn what he has done and contributed to the ele- 
mental happiness and well-being of those who came un- 
der his immediate political charge. If that record 
is bright and yields itself to the nobler instincts of the 


people that man lives in history and those who come — 
after him sing praises to his name even though he may ~ 
never have written a treaty of peace for the nations of — 


the world. The men who live in history, whose names 


shine with all the luster of a star, are those who culti- — 
vated the arts of kindness and justice and who have — 
eared for, rather than crushed, those persons whom all — 
the world knows were truly concerned with the happi- 


ness of their fellowmen. Speeches and phrases are things 
that die when the word is spoken, but acts, for good or 


for evil, are affairs never to be erased as long as there ~ 
are people to compile the records of human history. © 
More has been written and spoken in America for lib- 
erty and democracy in the past two years than in any — 
other country on earth, yet, it is a fact, tragie to relate, — 


that much has been done in America in the same period 


to crush liberty and stamp out democracy in this Re-~ 


public. Nothing more than a survey of the list of 


libertarians and true democrats punished by imprison- — 


LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 221 


ment under the Espionage Law is necessary to convince 
a fair-minded person of the truth of this assertion. 

Debs, as we know, was one of these libertarians so 
punished—Debs of whom Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, 
the world-famous sculptor who designed the Statue of 
Liberty that stands in New York harbor, said: | 

‘“He is endowed with the most precious faculty to 
which one can aspire—the gift of language; and he uses 
it for the proclamation of the most beautiful thoughts. 
His beautiful language is that of an Apostle.’’ 

When Debs had made his speech before the jury in 
his trial at Cleveland, Edmund Vance Cook, the Cleve- 
land poet, was moved to write a poem to the towering 
figure in that court room. He called it ‘‘Hugene.’’ The 
second verse reads: 


‘¢We may bind and make you mute, 
We may stripe you in the suit 

Of the meanest felon. Aye, 

We may scourge and crucify, 

But your soul, sublime, serene,— 
Who ean crucify Eugene?’’ 


More than a year ago, when I was Sunday editor of 
a New. York daily paper, I wrote to Debs and asked him 
if he would write something for us about the Russian 
Revolution. He promptly complied with my request. 
I shall quote a few paragraphs from his article :— 

“‘The Russian Revolution is without a precedent or 
a parallel in history. Monumental in its glory, it stands 
alone. Behold its sublime majesty, catch its holy spirit 
and join in its thrilling, inspiring appeal to the op- 
pressed of every land to rise in their might, shake off 
their fetters and proclaim their freedom to the world! 
Russia, domain of darkness impenetrable, transformed 
in a flash into a land of living light! Russia, the goddess 
of freedom incarnate, issuing her defiant challenge to 
the despotisms of the world! 

‘““The heart of Russia in this hour of her glorious 


222 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS ~ 


resurrection is the heart of humanity; the soul of her 
triumphant revolution is the soul of a new-born world. 
Verily, the last are now first, and the world’s most 
pitilessly plundered and shamelessly exiled have become 
the world’s revolutionary redeemers and supreme libera- 
tors. (20. 

““The Bolsheviki demanded nothing for themselves 
they did not demand in the same resolute spirit for the 
proletariat of all the world, and if history records the 
failure of their cause it will be to the eternal shame of 


if 


| 


' 
q 


those for whom these heroes offered up their lives and — 
who suffered them to perish for the lack of sympathy — 


and support.... 


‘* All the forces of the world’s reaction, all its dynas- — 


ties and despotisms, all its kingdoms and principalities, 
all its monarchies and imperialism, all its ruling and 
exploiting classes, and their politicians, priests, pro- 
fessors and parisites of every breed—all these are pitted 
openly or covertly against the Russian Revolution and 
conspiring together for the overthrow of the victorious 
Russian proletariat and the destruction of the new-born 
democracy. But, whatever may be the fate of the revo- 
lution, its flaming soul is immortal and will flood the 
world with light and liberty and love.’’ 

Debs has written and spoken much about children 
whom he loves. Once he wrote: ‘‘What sweet emo- 
tions the recollections of childhood inspire, and how 
priceless its treasured memories in our advancing and 
declining years! Laughing eyes and curly hair, little 
brown hands and bare feet, innocent and care-free, 
trusting and loving, tender and pure, what an elevating 
and satisfying influence these little gods have upon 
our maturer years. 

““Childhood! What a holy theme! Flowers they are, 
with souls in them, and if on this earth man has a 
sacred charge, a holy obligation, it is to these tender buds 
and blossoms of humanity.’ 


LIBERTARIAN AND LOVER 293 


A friend of Debs, a few years ago, sent him a ecard 
with some verses of his own composition announcing 
the birth of a baby girl. In a little while the mail 
brought a letter from the simple man: 

‘‘The glad tidings of the new life and the new light 
in your home came when I was far away or this ac- 
knowledgment would have been sooner made. With all 
my heart I send love and congratulations to the beauti- 
ful and transfigured mother, the joyous and exultant 
father, and the sweet and tender babe. 

“Tt is all beautiful to me and I can see it all and 
feel the thrill of it all as if I were in the very heart of 
your beloved family. My blessings upon the mother and 
the babe, and upon all of your godly household. 

‘<The riches of the world are now yours in all their 
abundance and all your comrades will unite in the 
celebration of your joy. 

_ ** Allow me, beloved comrade, to join in the beautiful, 
characteristic father greeting you have extended to the 
babe: 

“< “With outstretched arms and open heart I welcome 
you into this world of war with my love of peace.’ ”’ 


CHAPTER X 


HIS IMPRESS ON THE FUTURE 


F all the human sciences, character study and ap H 
praisal is perhaps the most illusive and deceptive. 

We cannot know exactly the amount of good nor the — 
extent of evil that has been accomplished and perpe- 
trated by a single individual. Men do place some sort 


the acts of their fellowmen for good or bad report, 
Historians follow in their train years, sometimes ages, 
later and assume to render the final verdict based, not 
upon their own knowledge of events, but upon the ac. 
cumulative evidence attending to and surrounding the i 
individual and the time in which he lived. This report . 


years, and they scan it eagerly for the word of ae 
or blame, according to their instincts, their feelings and 
their emotions, sometimes their intellects; they, in turn, 
aecept or ea the historian’s wont according toy 
which side their interests, material or otherwise, lie. ry 
After all, people believe those things about people that q 
they want to believe, and no amount of argument, — 
ever convincing, changes them until they themselves — 
want to change. That change, if it does come, occurs 
of its own volition through circumstances over which 
the person has little, if any, control and at the time 

when the moral, spiritual or intellectual interests have 
become allied ate or against the principles embodied ir ir 
the person with whom the historian deals. There is 
however, a cosmic intelligence and understanding and 


224 


HIS IMPRESS ON THE FUTURE 225 


this does in time defeat whatever unjust prejudice or 
fulsome praise may have existed. In the light of logic 
and the sense of sciene, water comes to its own level, and 
a diamond will endure long after the jewelers who ap- 
praised its value are dead. 

The assayist tests the worth of his precious metal by 
applying acid to its surface, while society employs the 
use of punishment and persecution upon its choicest 
spirits; unlike the assayist, society is not content with 
mere surface application of its venom and vitriol, but 
attempts to torture the heart and twist the soul of the 
man under its microscope. Failing in this, it some- 
times kills him outright as a warning to others who may 
have his social and spiritual bent. Nothing could be 
more cruel than the composite social mind which sub- 
jects its component parts to the most excruciating pains. 
Yet, paradoxically, the world-mind progresses and mani- 
fests a commonhood of tenderness and kindness and 
reciprocity. If the first premise were not true we should 
not have that pantheon wherein sit the shades of the 
gods who have illuminated all the pages of history by 
their glorious deeds and sacrifices for the well-being of 
their fellowmen, and who have pushed forward the hand 
of time through travail to triumph. If the second con- 
clusion is false then why come these admiring audi- 
ences, these teeming thousands to bow before their idols, 
to cherish their memories and to celebrate them in song 
and story? Truly, truly, the world is a fickle lover! 
It first condemns the man it later condones. Sometimes 
it kisses the hand that strikes it to earth. But oftener 
it reveres the memory of the man it has crushed. Which 
but proves the transparency of the human mind and 
the winding ways through which it must pass before 
it may arrive at any settled estate of estimate and bal- 
ance. 

It is not given to all men of strong mind and great 
heart to garner some of the fruits from the seeds they 


96 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


have sown. Many of the martyrs of history have come 
to ignominious ends without ever having known that 
they had caused one quickened heart-beat, or had started 
a ripple in the social stream. Others have been more 
fortunate. They have lived to see the changing tides and 
to witness the shifting scenes, and they have had the 
satisfaction of knowing that in these processes of inex= 
orable evolution they have played their part. 

Eugene Victor Debs, now in the autumn of his life, 
a prisoner of the United States government, belongs 
to this latter group. No man, living or dead, has more 
faithfully consecrated his life to the cause of social 
justice and fair dealing, man to man, than Debs. Like= 
wise, he has been severely punished for it. But he has 
fought the good fight and kept the faith of his fathers 
whose names are all in history, and who are revered 
even by the children of the races. Perhaps men will 
always differ concerning the wisdom of the special 
political and economic theories through which Debs 
chose to exert his influence; but no matter, for in the 
just verdict of mankind the world will agree that Debs 
was honest, kind, sincere, loyal, devoted, true, lovable 
and loving, always doing what he could in rain of 
shine, in prison or at home, to make this world a better 
and a brighter place for the people who inhabit it, and 
for those who will come afterward. For these things, 
these traits—which are akin to Christhood—will he be 
honored in the ages to come. 4 

The principle for which Debs stands—Socialism—is- 
already accepted, in one form or another, in various 
countries. This change in economic and political forms 
of government has been hastened by the World War 
which has just closed, and which Debs opposed. Debs” 
believed that these same changes could have been brought 
about through an enlightened intelligence and an ex- 
erted will of the people who have actually brought them 
about—the world’s workers. He has been a life-long 


i 


HIS IMPRESS ON THE FUTURE 227 


antagonist of the principle of violence and force no 
matter by whom it is practised. He would not injure 
or kill his biggest enemy if by so doing he would advance 
the cause nearest his heart, and therefor he would not 
be cowardly enough to encourage another so to do. 
He believed that the people could do what they were 
of a will to do; that they could change the form of gov- 
ernments under which they lived and arrange industries 
so that they would serve the people instead of exploit 
them, by acting in concert politically, economically and 
industrially. He did not believe it was necessary for the 
workers of one country to hate those of another and to 
meet on the battlefields to kill one another in order to 
have happier lives at home. 

There is an ever-increasing number of people who be- 
lieve that Socialism is the next step; who believe that 
it is the only possible form of human procedure by 
which people can live happily together and enjoy the 
fruits of their labor. Debs, believing this with all his 
heart and mind, has struggled unceasingly to bring 
this about. By his courage and his loving, tender heart 
he has done more than any other man in America to 
set forth the program which he and his followers believe 
will make for happiness and justice in the present and 
the future. 

He has fought his enemies with love, pity and com- 
passion. They have fought him with blood and bludgeon, 
persecution and prison. He has attacked their citadels 
with his eloquence and persuasion. They have returned 
the attack with injunctions and indictments. The fu- 
ture must decide this political and industrial question. 
As for Debs, as a man, as a leader of men, as a lover of 
liberty, as a determined spirit, and as a gentle soul, he 
has already left his impress on the future. There awaits 
him a page in history, and a niche in the temple of fame, 
not beside those who have purchased their way into 
posterity with blood or gold, but beside those who have 


228 DEBS—AUTHORIZED LIFE AND LETTERS 


~ been elevated to immortality through the common esti- 
mate of the common people. 

T have had no illusions about this book as being a final 
word on Debs’s career. It could not possibly be so, for — 
the subject of my study still lives and has other work to 
do. All that has been attempted here was to give an 
authoritative record of his life’s work, to set down as — 
accurately as it was in my power to do, those incidents — 
in his life which, accumulated, make him the splendid 
figure that he is in the eyes of those who love him 
almost to the point of idolatry—and thousands of such 
persons heartily disbelieve in Socialism. 


As I complete this task, dear "Gene, I give you my 
hand and my heart, for they are all that I have to give, 
without stint or diminution, in appreciation of your 
many kindnesses to me, of the too generous words that 
you have put on paper from your prison eell, and for — 
the noble things you have said and done for humanity. — 
For these things I am your debtor for the rest of my 
days—and now I lay this paltry tribute at your feet. 
The world may scoff at it, but in your generous heart 
you will accept it for what it is intended to be. 


t 
- 


‘APPENDIX 


UGENE V. DEBS was sentenced to ten years in 

prison under the Espionage Act for making a 
peech at Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918, before the State 
Jonvention of the Socialist Party of Ohio. The follow- 
ng are extracts from that speech as reported by a gov- 
rnment stenographer and included in the indictment. 
fhe government stenographer admitted in court that 
le was inexperienced and was unable to follow Debs’s 
peech accurately or verbatim. However that may be, 
Jebs admitted that what the government stenographer 
eported him as saying was substantially correct, but 
tually and technically at variance with the text of his 
peech. The extracts follow: 

*‘T have just returned from a visit from yonder 
pointing to workhouse) where three of our most loyal 
omrades are paying the penalty for their devotion to 
he cause of the working class. They have come to 
ealize, as many of us have, that it is extremely danger- 
us to exercise the constitutional right of free speech 
n a country fighting to make democracy safe for the 
vorld. I realize in speaking to you this afternoon that 
here are certain limitations placed upon the right of 
ree speech. I must be extremely careful, prudent, as 
o what I say, and even more careful and prudent as to 
iow I say it. I may not be able to say all I think, but 
-am not going to say anything I do not think. And I 
vould rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than 
. sycophant or coward on the streets. {They may put 
hose boys in jail, and some of the rest of us in jail, 


ut they cannot put the Socialist movement in jail.) 


Those prison bars separate their bodies from ours, but 
229 


230 APPENDIX 


their souls are here this afternoon. They are simply 
paying the penalty that all men have paid in all of the 
ages of history for standing erect and seeking to pave 
the way for better conditions for mankind. 

“‘Tf it had not been for the men and women who, in 
the past, have had the moral courage to go to jail, we 
would still be in the jungles. . 

(Why should a Socialist be discouraged-on the eve 
of the greatest triumph of all history of the Socialist 
movement? It is true that these are anxious, trying 
days for us all, testing those who are upholding the 
banner of the working class in the greatest struggle the 
world has ever known against the exploiters of the 
world; a time in which the weak, the cowardly, will 
falter and fail and desert. They lack the fiber to endure 
the revolutionary test. They fall away. They disappear 
as if they had never been. 
‘On the other hand, they who are animated with the 
unconquerable spirit of the social revolution, they who 
have the moral courage to stand erect, to assert their 
convictions, to stand by them, to go to jail or to hell 
for them—they are writing their names in this crucial 
hour, they are writing their names in fadeless letters 
in the history of mankind. Those boys over yonder, 
those comrades of ours—and how I love them—aye, 
they are our younger brothers, their names are aoa 
in our souls. 

“‘T am proud of them. They are there for us anil 
we are here for them. Their lips, though temporarily 
mute, are more eloquent than ever before, and their 
voices, though silent, are heard around the world. f 

‘*Are we opposed to Prussian militarism? Why, we 
have been fighting it since the day the Socialist move- 
ment was born and we are going to continue to fight 
it to-day and until it is wiped from the face of the 
earth. Between us there is no truce, no comprom- 
AS Ch) 6h '4 : 
} 
A 


ae) 


——- 


APPENDIX 231 


“‘To not imagine for one moment that all the pluto- 
erats and Junkers are all in Germany; we have them 
here in our own country, and these want to keep our 
eyes focused upon the Junkers in Germany so we won’t 
see those within our own border. I have no earthly use 
for the Junkers of Germany and not one particle more 
use for the Junkers in the United States. 

hey tell us we live in a great republic. Our insti- 
tutions are democratic. We are a free people. This is 
too much, even as a joke. It is not a subject for levity; 
it is an exceedingly serious matter. . 

‘*Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. It has 
been the tyrant who wrapped himself in a cloak_of re- 
ligion or patriotism, or both. They would have you be- 
lieve that the Socialist Party consists in the main of 
disloyalists ‘and traitors. It is true, in a certain sense. 
We are disloyalists and traitors to the real traitors of 
this nation. ... 

““Why, the other day they sent a woman to Wichita 
Penitentiary for ten years. Just think of sentencing a 
woman to the penitentiary for talking. The United 
States under the rule of the plutocrats is the only coun- 
try which would send a woman to the penitentiary for 
ten years for exercising the right to free speech. If 
this be treason, let them make the most of it. Let me 
review another bit of history. I have known this woman 
for ten years. Personally I know her as if she were 
my own younger sister. She is a woman of absolute 
integrity. She is a woman of courage. She is a woman 
of unimpeachable loyalty to the Socialist movement. 
She went out into Dakota and made her speech, followed 
by plain-clothes men in the service of the government, 
intent upon encompassing her arrest, prosecuted and 
convicted. She made a certain speech and that speech 
was deliberately misrepresented for the purpose of se- 
euring her conviction. The only testimony was that 
of a hired witness. ... And thirty farmers who went 


to Bismark to testify in her favor, the judge refused to 
allow to testify. This would seem incredible to me if 
I had not had some experience of my own with a Federal — 
court. Who appoints the Federal courts? The people? — 
Every solitary one of them holds his position through — 
influence and power of corporation capital. And when 
they go to the bench, they go there not to serve the peo- © 
ple, but to serve the interests who sent them. [ The 
other day, by a vote of five to four, they declared the 
Child Labor Law unconstitutional; a law secured after 
twenty years of education and agitation by all kinds of © 
people, and yet by a majority of one, the Supreme 
Court, a body of corporation lawyers, with just one 
solitary exception, wiped it from the statute books, so 
that we may still continue to grind the blood of little 
children into profit for the Junkers of Wall Street, and 4 
this in a country that is now fighting to make democracy 
safe for the world. These are not palatable truths to © 
them. And they do not want you to hear them and — 
that is why they brand us traitors and disloyalists. If 
we were not traitors to the people, we would be eminently ~ 
respectable citizens and ride in limousines. It is pre- — 
cisely because we are disloyal to the traitors that we are 
not disloyal to the people of this country. . ‘ 
“‘How short-sighted the ruling class rin The ex- 
ploiter cannot see beyond the end of his nose. He has 
just been cunning enough to know what graft is and 
where it is but he has no vision. You know this is a 
great throbbing world that speaks out in all directions. — 
Look at Rockefeller. Every move he makes hastens thé . 
coming of his doom. Every time the capitalist class — 
tries to hinder the cause of Socialism they hurt them- 
selves. Every time they strangle a Socialist newspaper 
they add a thousand voices to those which are aiding — 
Socialism. The Socialist _has a great-idea. An expand- | 
ing philosophy. It,is spreading over the face of the ; 


earth, Tf is as useless to resist it as it is to resist the» ; 


232 APPENDIX : 
j 


¥ 


; 


APPENDIX 233 


rising sunrise. Can you see it? If you cannot you are 
lacking in vision, in understanding. What a privilege 
it is to serve it. I have regretted a thousand times I 
ean do so little for the movement that has done so much 
for me. The little that I am, the little that I am hoping 
to be, is due wholly to the Socialist movement. It gave 
me my ideas and my ideals, and I would not exchange 
one of them for all the Rockefeller blood-stained dollars. 
It taught me how to serve; a lesson to me of priceless 
value. It taught the eestasy of the handclasp of the 
comrade. It made it possible for me to get in touch with 
you, to multiply myself over and over again; to open 
the avenue to spread out the glorious vistas; to know 
that I am kin with all that throbs that become class 
conscious. Every man who toils, every one of them, is 
my comrade.... 

ere I hear your heart beats responsive to the 
Bolsheviki of Russia. (Applause.) Yes, those heroic 
men and women, those unconquerable comrades, who 
have by their sacrifice added fresh luster to the inter- 
‘national movement. Those Russian comrades who have 
made greater sacrifices, who have suffered more, who 
have shed more heroic blood than any like number of 
men and women anywhere else on earth. They have led 
the first real convention of any democracy that ever 
drew breath. The first act of that memorable revolution 
was to proclaim a state of peace with an appeal not to 
the kings, not to the rulers, but an appeal to the people 
of all nations. They are the very breath of democracy; 
the quintessence of freedom. ... 

““Wars have been waged for conquests, for plunder, 
and since the feudal ages along the Rhine, the feudal 
lords have made war upon each other. They wanted to 
enlarge their domains, to increase their power and their 
wealth and so they declared war upon each other. But 
they did not go to war any more than the Wall Street 
Junkers go to war. Their predecessors declared the 


Out 


234 APPENDIX 


a 
‘wars, but their miserable serfs fought the wars. The 
serfs believed that it was their patriotic duty to fall upon — 
one another, to wage war upon one another. And that 
is war in a nutshell. The master class has always brought 
a war and the subject class has fought the battle. The 
master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, 
and the subject class has had all to lose and nothing to 
gain. They have always taught you that it is your pa- 
triotie duty to go to war and slaughter yourselves at 
their command. You have never had a voice in the 
war. The working class who make the sacrifices, who — 
shed the blood, have never yet had a voice in declaring 
war. The ruling class has always made the war and 
made the peace. ) 


‘¢ ¢Yours not to question why, 
Yours but to do and die.’ 


“* Another bit of history that I want to review is that 
of Rose Pastor Stokes, another inspiring comrade. She 
had her millions of dollars. Her devotion to the cause 
is without all consideration of a finaneal or economic 
view. She went out to render service to the cause and 
they sent her to the penitentiary for ten years, What 
has she said? Nothing more than I have said here this 
afternoon. I want to say that if Rose Pastor Stokes is 
guilty, so am I. If she should be sent to the peniten- 
tiary for ten years, so ought I. What did she say? She ~ 
said that a government could not serve both the profi- © 
teers and the employees of the profiteers. Roosevelt — 
has said a thousand times more in his paper, the Kansas 
City Star. He would do everything possible to discredit — 
Wilson’s Administration in order to give his party ered- — 
it. The Republican and Democratic parties are all pa- © 
triots this Fall and they are going to combine to prevent ~ 
the election of any disloyal Socialists. Do you know of — 
any difference between them? One is in, the other is — 
out. That is all the difference. | 


APPENDIX 235 


“‘Rose Pastor Stokes never said a word she did not 
have a right to utter, but her message opened the eyes 
of the people. That must be suppressed. That voice 
must be silenced. Her trial in a capitalist court was very 
farcical. "What chance had she in a corporation court 
with a put-up jury and a corporation tool on the 
bench? ... 

“<The heart of the international Socialist never beats 
a retreat. They are pressing forward here, there, every- 
where, in all the zones that girdle this globe. These 
workers, these class-conscious workers, these children of 
honest toil are wiping out the boundary lines everywhere. 
They are all proclaiming the glad tidings of the commg 
emancipation. Everywhere they are having their hearts 
attuned to the sacred cause; everywhere they are moy- 
ing toward democracy, moving toward the sunrise, their 
faces aglow with the light of the coming day. These 
are the men who must guide us in the greatest crisis the 
world has ever known. They are making history. They 

are bound upon:the emancipating of the human race. 

_ *“They have been sufficient to themselves, pressing for- 
ward to the heights. Do you wish to hasten the coming 
day? Join the Socialist Party. Do not wait for the 
morrow. Come now. Enroll your name. Take your 
place where you belong. You cannot do your duty by 
proxy. You have got to do it yourself. You will have 
no occasion to blush. You will know what it is to be a 
man or a woman. You will lose nothing. You will gain 
everything. You are very apt to find something. You 
need to know that you are fit for something better than 
slavery and cannon fodder... . 

‘There is a great deal of hope for our comrades, 
Wagenknecht, Ruthenberg and Baker. Anybody can be 
nobody, but it takes a man to be somebody. Turn your 
back upon that corrupt Republican Party and that still 
more corrupt Democratic Party, the gold-dust twins of 
the ruling class. Get into a minority party that fights 


236 APPENDIX 


for a cause. Make that change. It will be the most im- | 
portant change you ever made in your life. “You will 
thank me for having made the suggestion. It was a day © 
of days for me. I passed from darkness to light... . 

‘‘Among other things they tell you to cultivate war — 
gardens. Government reports now show that 52 per cent — 
of the arable, tillable soil is held out of use by the 

| profiteers. They do not allow others to cultivate it. 
{ They keep it idle, to enrich themselves. Thus, it makes ~ 
\their land valuable. It is not the fault of the people; it © 
as the fault of the landlords. And while we are upon — 
the subject, think about the landlord. The landlord is © 
the great patriot. He is fighting to make the world safe — 
for democracy. He it is who profits at the expense of the © 
people under the pretense of being a great patriot. It is f 
he whom you need to wipe from power. It is he who — 
diminishes your health and your liberty far more than — 
the Prussian junker on the other side of the ocean. ... © 

‘*A change is needed, a change of system from despot- — 
ism to democracy, a change from slavery to freedom; : 
a change from brutehood to brotherhood. To accom- 
plish this you have got to organize, and to organize not — 
along the zig-zag lines laid down by Sam Gompers who, | 
through ‘all of his career, has been on the side of the 
capitalist class. You never hear the capitalist papers — 
speak of him except in praise. Gompers was always con- 
servative. . 

‘‘Few men have the courage to say a decent word in 
favor of the I. W. W. I have. (Here several in the — 
crowd yelled, ‘So have I.’) | 

‘‘T have a great respect for the I. W. W.... It is — 
only necessary to label a man ‘I. W. W.’ to lyneh him. — 
Just think of the state of mind for which the capitalist — 
' press is responsible. 

‘‘When Wall Street yells war, you may rest assured 
every pulpit in the land will yell war. The press and 
the pulpit have in every age and every nation been on — 


APPENDIX 237 


the side of the exploiting class and the ruling class. 
That’s why the I. W. W. is infamous. 
“The I. W. W. in its career has never committed 


- as much violence against the ruling class as the ruling 


class has committed against the people. The trial at 
Chicago is now on, and they have not proven violence in 
a single solitary case, and yet, one hundred and twelve 
men have been on trial for months and months without 
a shade of evidence. And this is all in its favor. And 
for this and many other reasons, the I W. W. is 
fighting the fight of the bottom dog. For the very rea- 
son that Gompers is glorified by Wall Street, Bill Hay- 
wood is despised by Wall Street... . 

**And now for all of us to do our duty. The cali is 
ringing in your ears. Do not worry over the charge of 
treason to your masters, but be concerned about the 
treason that involves yourself. . .. We Socialists are 
the builders of the world that is to be. We are inviting 
you this afternoon. Join and it will help you. In 
due course of time we will proclaim the emancipation of 
the brotherhood of all mankind.”’ 


Following is the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, rendered March 10th, 1919, in the case of 
Debs: 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 
No. 714— October Term, 1918. 


Engene V. Debs, Plaintiff In Error to the District 


sy oes Court of the United States 
N Ei 
Thal Waited States of for the orthern District 
i of Ohio. 
America. 


(March 10, 1919.) 


Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the 
Court. 


238 APPENDIX 


This is an indictment under the Espionage Act of 


June 15, 1917, c. 30, p. 3, as amended by the Act of May 
16, 1918, ce. 75, p. 1, 40 Stat—It has been eut down to 
two counts, originally the third and fourth. The former 
of these alleges that on or about June 16, 1918, at Can- 
ton, Ohio, the defendant caused and incited and at- 
tempted to cause and incite insubordination, disloyalty, 
mutiny and refusal of duty in the military and naval 
forces of the United States and with intent so to do 


delivered, to an assembly of people, a public speech, set — 


ferth. The fourth count alleges that he obstructed 
and attempted to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment 
service of the United States and to that end and with 
that intent delivered the same speech, again set forth. 
There was a demurrer to the indictment on the ground 
that the statute is unconstitutional as interfermg with 
free speech, contrary to the First Amendment, and to the 


several counts as insufficiently stating the supposed of- ~ 


fence. This was overruled, subject to exception. There 
were other exceptions to the admission of evidence with 
which we shall deal. The defendant was found guilty 
and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on each 
of the two counts, the punishment to run concurrently 
on both. 


The main theme of the speech was Socialism, its 


growth, and a prophecy of its ultimate success. With 


that we have nothing to do, but if a part of the manifest — 


intent of the more general utterances was to encourage 


those present to obstruct the recruiting service and if in 


passages such encouragement was directly given, the 


immunity of the general theme may not be enough to ~ 


protect the speech. The speaker began by saying that 


he had just returned from a visit to the workhouse in — 
the neighborhood where three of their most loyal com- — 


rades were paying the penalty for their devotion to the 


working class—these being Wagenknecht, Baker, and 


Ruthenberg, who had been convicted of aiding and abet 


APPENDIX 239 


ting another in failing to register for the draft. RUTH- 
ENBERG V. UNITED STATES, 245 U. S. 480. He 
said that he had to be prudent and might not be able 
to say all that he thought, thus intimating to his hear- 
ers that they might infer that he meant more, but he did 
say that those persons were paying the penalty for stand- 
ing erect and for seeking to pave the way to better con- 
ditions for all mankind. Later he added further eulogies 
and said that he was proud of them. He then expressed 
opposition to Prussian militarism in a way that natural- 
-y might have been thought to be intended to include the 
mode of proceeding in the United States. 

After considerable discourse that it is unnecessary to 
follow, he took up the case of Kate Richards O’Hare, 
convicted of obstructing the enlistment service, praised 
her for her loyalty to Socialism and otherwise, and said 
that she was convicted on false testimony, under a rul- 
ing that would seem incredible to him if he had not had 
some experience with a Federal Court. We mention this 
passage simply for its connection with evidence put in at 
the trial. The defendant spoke of other cases, and then, 
after dealing with Russia, said that the master class has 
always declared the war and the subject class has always 
fought the battles—that the subject class has had noth- 
ing to gain and all to lose, including their lives; that the 
working class, who furnish the corpses, have never yet 
had a voice in declaring war and have never yet had a 
voice in declaring peace. ‘You have your lives to lose; 
you certainly ought to have the right to declare war if 
you consider a war necessary.’ The defendant next men- 
tioned Rose Pastor Stokes, convicted of attempting to 
cause insubordination and refusal of duty in the mili- 
tary forces of the United States and obstructing the re- 
eruiting service. He said that she went out to render 

_her service to the cause in this day of crises, and they 
sent her to the penitentiary for ten years; that she had 
_ said no more than the speaker had said that afternoon; 


240 APPENDIX 


that if she was guilty so was he, and that he would not be — 
cowardly enough to plead his innocence; but that her 
message that opened the eyes of the people must be 
suppressed, and so after a mock trial before a packed — 
jury and a corporation tool on the bench, she was sent f 
to the penitentiary for ten years. q 

There followed personal experiences and illustrations — 
of the growth of Socialism, a glorification of minorities, 
and a prophecy of the success of the international Social- ~ 
ist crusade, with the interjection that ‘‘you need to know © 
that you are fit for something better than slavery and ~ 
cannon fodder.’’ The rest of the discourse had only the” 
indirect though not necessarily ineffective bearing on the © 
offences alleged that is to be found in the usual con- 
trasts between capitalists and laboring men, sneers at the © 
advice to cultivate war gardens, attribution to pluto- ~ 
crats of the high price of coal, ete., with the implica- 
tion running through it all that the women: men are not 
concerned in the war, and a final exhortation, ‘“Don’t ; 
worry about the charge of treason to your masters; but ~ 
be concerned about the treason that involves your- 
selves.’? The defendant addressed the jury himself, and 
while contending that his speech did not warrant the © 
charges said, ‘‘I have been accused of obstructing the 
war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would op- 4 
pose the war if I stood alone.’’ The statement was not 
necessary to warrant the jury in finding that one pur- ‘ 
pose of the speech, whether incidental or not, does not 
matter, was to oppose not only war in general but this 7 
war, and that the opposition was so expressed that its yi 
natural and intended effect would be to obstruct re- 
eruiting. If that was intended and if, in alll the cireum- - ‘ 
stances, that would be its probable efter it would not be 
protected by reason of its being part of a general pro- wi 
gram and expressions of a general and conscientious be: A 
lief, . 


APPENDIX 241 


willing to rely were the denial that we have dealt with 
and that based upon the First Amendment to the Con- 
stitution, disposed of in SCHENCK V. UNITED 
STATES, ANTE. His counsel questioned the sufficiency 
of the indictment. It is sufficient in form. FROH- 
WERK V. UNITED STATES, ANTE. The most im- 
portant question that remains is raised by the admission 
in evidence of the record of the conviction of Ruthen- 
berg, Wagenknecht and Baker, Rose Pastor Stokes, and 
Kate Richards O’Hare. The defendant purported to un- 
derstand the grounds on which these persons were im- 
prisoned and it was proper to show what those grounds 
were in order to show what he was talking about, to 
explain the true import of his expression of sympathy 
and to throw light on the intent of the address, so far as 
the present matter is concerned. 

There was introduced also an ‘‘ Anti-war Proclama- 
tion and Program’’ adopted at St. Louis in April, 1917, 
eoupled with testimony that about an hour before his 
speech the defendant had stated that he approved of 
that platform in spirit and in substance. The defendant 
referred to it in his address to the jury, seemingly with 
satisfaction and willingness that it should be considered 
in evidence. But his counsel objected and has argued 
against its admissibility, at some length. This document 
contained the usual suggestion that capitalism was the 
cause of the war and that our entrance into it ‘‘was in- 
stigated by the predatory capitalists in the United 
States.’’ It alleged that the war of the United States 
against Germany could not ‘‘be justified even on the plea 
that it is a war in defence of American rights or Amer- 
ican ‘honor.’’’ It said: ‘‘We brand the declaration of 
war by our Government as a crime against the people 
of the United States and against the nations of the 
world. In all modern history there has been no war 
more unjustifiable than the war in which we are about to 
engage.’’ Its first recommendation was, ‘‘continuous, 


242 APPENDIX 


‘active, and public opposition to the war, through dem. 
onstrations, mass petitions, and all other means within 
our power.’’ Evidence that the defendant accepted this — 
view and this declaration of his duties at the time that he ~ 
made his speech is evidence that if in that speech he used © 
words tending to obstruct the recruiting service he meant , 
that they should have that effect. The principle is too 
well established and too manifestly good sense to need © 
citation of the books. We should add that the jury 
were most carefully instructed that they could not find © 
the defendant guilty for advocacy of any of his opinions © 
unless the words used had as their natural tendency and 
reasonably probable effect to obstruct the recruiting ser- 
vice, etc., and unless the defendant had the specific 
intent to do so in his mind. 

Without going into further particulars we are of opin- 
ion that the verdict on the fourth count, for obstructing 
and attempting to obstruct the recruiting service of the 
United States, must be sustained. Therefore it is less — 
important to consider whether that upon the third count, — 
for causing and attempting to cause insubordination, — 
ete.,°in the military and naval forces, is equally im- 
pregnable. The jury were instructed that for the pur-— 
poses of the statute the persons designed by the Act of a 
May 18, 1917, registered and enrolled under it, and thus — 
subject to be called into the active service, were a part 
of the military forces of the United States. The Goy- 
ernment presents a strong argument from the history of 
the statutes that the instruction was correct and in ac-— 
cordance with established legislative usage. We see no 
sufficient reason for differing from the conclusion, but — 
think it unnecessary to discuss the question in detail. 


4 


Judgment affirmed. 
A true copy. 


Test: 
Clerk Supreme Court, U. S. 


APPENDIX 243 


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244 APPENDIX 


a 


A LETTER FROM PRISON 


Davip KaARrsNER, EK. V. Debs, 
2 Beekman Place, Serial No. 2253, 
New York, N. Y. 

Moundsville, W. Va., May 29,1919. 
Beloved Comrade Dave: 

You are the very dearest, sweetest, finest of comrades, 
and you have proved it time without number since first - | 
you came, as if by special providence, into my life. 
I find myself so often under the necessity of thanking 
you for some fresh kindness that I have come to realize 
how little of what sings in the heart and sighs for ex- 
pression can be transferred to the written page. Please 
give the ‘‘youngster’’ in the office my love for his kind-— 
ness in helping you to furnish me with the Cail files and 
clippings as requested, a service on the part of you both 
that I gratefully appreciate. 

Dear, beautiful, wonderful Horace! Put your arms 
around him and kiss him for me until I can do so myself. 
The Almighty never made but one of him. Tell him for : 
me to cling to the willows and live—he cannot other 
wise, for he’s immortal. The Whitman Fellowship ban- 
quet of the gods will revive, restore and re-inspire him. © 
How I’d love to be with you and put my arms about you 
all. I’m busy here every minute. AIl’s well within my 
walls—if only the same were true without! Warden 
Terrell has inquired about you. He thinks very kindly 
of you as you do of him. 

My love to our dear Horace, Anne Montgomerie, your y 
sweet Rose, and the comrades at the Call! 


| 


Yours until the last sunset, GENE. 


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